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He may be – according to the title of his own memoirs – a rock’n’roll survivor but Stray founder member Del Bromham has not lost his musical creativity. The band have just released a very welcome first studio album in well over a decade, and the first with the band’s newest, expanded line-up which I thought was the best under the Stray name (at least in my time, being too young to remember the original) when I saw them twice, either side of the pandemic. However at the prestigious 100 Club I was disappointed the half-full turnout was not bigger.
As an official album launch show, this was always going to be a different set from the norm and, with an introductory bass solo from the Rickenbacker wielding Colin Kempster, ‘Shout’ was heavy but the song structure felt different in nature to what Stray have done in the past. There had to be older stuff as well of course, and a punchy ‘Houdini’ saw second guitarist Pete Dyer taking most of the vocals on a song from their mid- seventies period where he was their lead singer, while Del excelled with a wah-wah solo, then ‘Time Machine’ boasted one of their classic early seventies riffs.
Moving back to the present day ‘I Am’, with its autobiographical lyric ‘I am a lion, I am a tiger, I’m a rock’n'roll survivor’ and boasting a surprising melodic sensibility even in his guitar solo, and ‘Better Day’ with its pandemic-era lyrics showed that although a genuine and cult guitar hero, his talent as a singer and songwriter is too easily overlooked.
After a dip back into their last studio album ‘Valhalla’ (voted GRTR!’s album of 2009, natch!) for ‘1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’, there were two more new numbers in ‘Black Star’, a superb straight ahead rocker which had impressed me so much when I heard it at A New Day Festival last year and ‘Living The Dream’ with prominent Hammond from Simon Rinaldo whose addition has moved the band closer to Uriah Heep territory, never a bad thing in my book.
The rest of the set was Stray classics, beginning with ‘I Believe It’ which turned into an eight minute epic as Del wound up a lengthy solo, before after a different, almost reggae-fied intro and what sounded like a slower start than normal, ‘After The Storm’ eventually exploded into a furious burst of one heavy riff and solo after another.
In an improvised change to the setlist ‘Jericho’ featured a fast and frantic guitar and keyboard battle, before set closer and probably Stray’s signature song, ‘All In Your Mind’ was suitably epic, and included Del’s party piece of leaving his guitar suspended from a rig of speakers. In the hands of an excellent band and Karl Randall’s powerhouse drumming in particular, this was pioneering heavy rock at its finest.
Sadly there was only time for one encore in a shorter set that some epics I have witnessed in the past, but it was one of my favourite more recent Stray discoveries from the ‘Dyer period’ in ‘One Night In Texas’, where the rumbling rhythms and harmony guitar solos between Del and Pete were redolent of Wishbone Ash’s ‘Jailbait’.
It was a top gig from one of rock’s cult heroes, and the verdict was that the balance between old and new was about right. The latter numbers look like they have real staying power to fit in the set and ensure Stray remain a contemporary force and not just an interesting footnote in rock history.
Review and Photos by Andy Nathan
Album review/interview (About Time, 2023)
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