With Thunder off the road for the foreseeable future, Luke Morley has been able to devote more significant time to his solo work. Last year’s ‘Songs from the Blue Room’, a mellow collection of songs sounding nothing like his main band, was one of my favourite albums of last year and he began 2024 with a six date tour culminating in this home town show. The bulging guest list reflected the warmth the capital’s musicians have for their fellow Londoner.

There was a completely different but equally impressive support band in Hillbilly Vegas, following up an acoustic UK debut last year with a full electric show. With a name that seems to be result of a random band name generator, the Oklahoma sextet plough the same furrow , at the crossroads of the trio of southern blues, rock and country, as the likes of Brothers Osborne and Blackberry Smoke. Indeed singer Steve Harris mentioned they had been driven out of Nashville for refusing to confirm to industry stereotypes.

Where they do differ from the latter is a rather livelier stage presence and indeed Steve was a natural raconteur and comic, even if his jokes were what of what we used to call the shaggy dog variety.

The likes of ‘Steady At the Wheel’ and ‘High Time For a Good Time’ were listenable if neither overly original nor musically intricate, while opener ‘Mason Jars and Moonlight’ had a danceable R’n’ B groove to it as did ‘Something Crazy’. However for me where they hit their stride were two classic storytelling pieces of Americana in ‘Long Way Back’ and (I think) ‘Let It Ride’.

Steve paid a heartfelt tribute to Frankie Miller, the band covering his ‘Down the Honky Tonk’ with suitable raunch, and though I feared ‘Shake It Like a Hillbilly’ might be a gimmick song, it was equally good. I found myself very impressed and a little envious of those who will have the opportunity to see them play some headline shows, where I am sure their classic southern music with a big side order of humour will go down as well as it did here.

While Luke Morley played virtually all instruments on ‘Songs from the Blue Room’ by himself, he had assembled a crack five piece band for the tour, including Thunder colleague Chris Childs on bass, and Dean Howard, on loan from Cats in Space and sporting a very dapper trilby. However after taking the stage to the strains of Tom Petty, the opening trio of songs were fairly faithful to their studio counterparts.

The combination of Luke’s power chords, Sam Tanner’s organ and backing vocals made for classic US heartland rock on ‘I Wanna See the Light’, but ‘Damage’ in contrast was in the line of English pop from The Kinks through to Squeeze, Sam’s piano prominent before a short closing solo from Luke in trademark fashion, leaning at an angle into his left-handed Stratocaster. ‘Killed by Cobain’ was his wistful look back at Thunder’s failure to break America, to a backing of the Kinks meets the Travelling Wilburys.

With dry humour, he then told stories of his days growing up on the South London music scene and his envy at seeing one of his contemporaries in Dean playing on Top of the Pops with T’Pau, prior to ‘This World’, which stylistically was closer to Thunder. Donning a pink acoustic guitar for ‘Errol Flynn’, Luke was generous enough to share the lead guitar work throughout the gig with Dean.

My homework in digging out his 2001 solo album ‘El Gringo Retro’ earlier in the day paid off with a couple from that album in ‘Quiet Life’ and ‘The First Day’. The latter probably ranks among his finest compositions, given full justice by some fine musicianship and with a lyric ‘its the first day of the rest of my life’ that is a mantra we could all adopt, not only AA participants.

‘I’m the One You Want’ saw the band jam out, without descending into self indulgence and bringing the song to a conclusion in impressively tight manner. But other songs were far removed from his day job. ‘Nobody Cares’ with its sardonic views on social media influencers was accompanied by a musical backing you might hear in a Mediterranean taverna on holiday and ‘Lying to Myself’ cheekily adopted the melody from ‘Blowin in the Wind’.

My one gripe was that- with the venue far from full, lulled into atrophy by some very dull mournful country over the PA between songs and the mellow nature of much of the music- the atmosphere was for much of the time a little subdued. However it warmed up with more audience participation on ‘When the Sun Goes Down’, where Luke’s harmonica and Sam’s honky-tonk style piano were a timely reminder that Luke will be playing more of this type of music this year with Spike’s Quireboys. Again the band were on top form with drummer Jack Taylor bringing the song to an end with a vigorous flourish.

Prior to the encores, Luke thanked all the Thunder fans for their contributions to Danny Bowes’ treatment, without which he would not be progressing as he is, making all the more poignant the one Thunder song of the night in ‘A Better Man’, with Luke’s vocals losing only a little to the master.

It was back to more up tempo fare with the Isley Brothers style guitar intro to ‘Go With the Flow’, catchy enough to be in my head as I travelled back from the gig, and the band rocking out with brief solo slots- including some touching camaraderie as Chris looked cheekily at Luke who replied with a weary ‘oh go on’. There was a final cover, dedicated to a former manager who had previously managed the Kinks who as Luke wryly remarked got into a ‘spot of bother’ in Paris. His vocals dovetailed very well with Sam’s on a fine version of ‘Lola’.

Luke’s modesty and self-deprecation shone through, right to the end when his last words were in specific praise of the support band. No-one could have objected though to his blowing his own horn, as this was a reminder outside the context of Thunder quite what a fine songwriter, musical director and, yes, singer he is.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.
In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.

Josh Taerk Sunday Sessions 2024

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Power Plays w/c 15 April 2024

ENMY The Ledge (FiXT)
KAROBELA Get Hard (indie)
KATH & THE KICKS Neptune (indie)
THE BEE TELLERS River Poem (Black Sand Records)
LAUREN FREEBIRD Like A Bomb (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 15 April 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023
14:00-16:00 KATARINA PEJAK – Pearls On A String (Ruf Records)

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