Steve Burton - Vincent Flatts

Tonight is the sort of gig that restates the true staples of rock and roll, namely the holy trinity of a great band, a welcoming venue and receptive audience.

Birmingham’s Vincent Flatts Final Drive is the kind kick ass band with a brilliant front man Steve “Bertie” Burton, who can start a party at any time, any place, anywhere.

And Slim Jim’s Liquor Store provides the colourfully designed, old school biker bar in the heart of the yuppy stronghold of Islington, with a spirited (pun intended) cross generational audience to light the tinder box of rip roaring night of Southern tinged rock.

Burton won’t thank me for dwelling on the fact that it’s a startling 44 years since he initial broke through on to the rock circuit with the AC / DC linked Starfighters.

Since then, he’s led several versions of Vincent Flatts Final, and while the twin imperatives of biker culture and Southern fried boogie have never been too far removed from the band’s essential core, the current version of Flatts (already well over a decade old), is arguable their most settled and innovative.

Bertie may be twice the rest of the band’s age, but you would never know it.

From the moment he enunciates the opening line of Captain Beefheart’s ‘Circumstances’ at an ad hoc sound check, he’s seriously got people’s attention.

He further shares some unintelligible banter with the crowd as the band cranks out the opening chords of the Georgia Satellites favourite ‘Keep Your Hands to Yourself’, and immediately the party begins.

His range remains remarkably undiminished. It’s perhaps a little thinner in the upper register, but all the more wholesome when digging deep with his baritone.

He is that rare commodity, a rock vocalist whose belligerent phrasing emotes passion, commitment and a sense of fun.

He’s backed by the sturdy rhythm section of drummer Rich Shelton and bassist Russ Cook who alternatively groove, boogie, stomp and rock out to give guitarist Gary Harper plenty of stylistic options over which to solo imperiously.

Gary Harper, Bertie, Russ Cook (L-R)

They belt out a pulverising boogie called ‘Graveyard Shift’ and then explore unexpected subtly on the deep funky groove of Bernard Allison’s ‘Chills N Trills’.

There’s an inevitable song about whiskey and a self penned Americana tune, the title of which escapes me because the crowd is still roaring the band on from the previous number.

They tear things up on their latest single, the stop-time boogie of ‘Old Chevy’, and then head into an extended blues on which guitarist Gary Harper takes centre stage with 2 solos full of real intensity, tonal substance, light and shade and plenty of sweat.

Not to be outdone, Bertie encourages the crowd with a holler:” Can I get another whooo?”

Everything comes together mellifluously on ‘When The Well Runs Dry’, before the fever pitch ‘6 Days On The Road’.

Remarkable the crowd – a blur of tattoos, leather jackets, gothic hair, denim, mini skirts, AC/DC T-shirts and even incongruous shorts – all coalesce to belt out the chorus, while Bertie keeps time by stamping the floorboards.

The stop-time ‘Cadillac’ finds him doubled up in a crouched position to expiate a vocal rap, and then he rolls back on his heels to punch the air on the chorus.

Steve Burton - Vincent Flatts Final Drive

The place positively bounces with the familiar ‘The Shape I’m In’ and they roar into a climactic finale with ‘Monkey Around’.

The band is positively jubilant the explosive ‘Blues In Technicolor’, a deserved encore, which is a gargantuan collision of Burton’s animated phrasing and Harpers fierce attack .

I’m thinking it doesn’t get much better than this, a thought that applies to the evening as a whole, as much as to that particular moment in time.

Sounds cosmic? You betcha!

Review by Pete Feenstra
Photos by Terry Ball

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