In the new wave of rising British blues stars, Will Wilde is something of an anomaly in that among all those guitar hot shots, his chosen instrument of speciality is the harmonica. He is clearly building a name for himself as this near sell out for the London launch of his ‘Blues Is Still Alive’ album showed.

It was part of the 100 Club’s well established Tuesday Blues series, so he was topping a three band bill, which began with young singer Thea Watson and her even more youthful looking band. She mixed covers like ‘Its a Man’s World’ and originals like ‘Love Like This’.

Leaning more towards the soul or even pop side of blues- at one point Adele was the comparison I was making- she has a very promising voice, though if she has an area to work on it is better diction as sometimes it was hard to make out the lyrics. An unexpectedly brief half hour set ended with ‘Skin and Tears’, with some fine, sensitive guitar playing from band member Alex.

The blues theme was clearly not being heeded too closely as the middle act were Star Circus. Fronted by my buddy Dave Winkler, the melodic hard rockers draw from many influences but blues would not immediately spring to mind. Since I last saw them they have had a line-up change, and now boast three guitarists, including the impressive, hat-sporting Santiago Periotti, though it also gives Dave the chance to occasionally focus solely on vocals, and Sebastian Leiton doubles on keyboards when needed.

After opening with ‘Over and Over’, and ‘Times Get Tough’ with a riff that one of my fellow scribes pinned as ‘Devil Woman’, came the first of those twin guitars on ‘Just Like In A Movie’. ‘Chained To You’, ‘Love Is the Enemy’ and ‘Bridges’ all had the right mix of crunchy riffs and melodies, while a new song ‘One Hit Wonder’ seemed, lyrically, to paint a vivid character sketch in that archetypally English vaudeville style.

Dave cast off the guitar to lead the crowd in an impressive cover of The Cult’s ‘Fire Woman’ which I thought might be the last song but there was still time for the buffetingly heavy riffery of ‘Save Your Life’, and an encore ‘Gina In A Bottle’ (sic), which as with many of their songs reminded me of the young hopefuls I used to see at the Marquee in the last half of the eighties.

Blues it might not have been but they seem to have taken a mightily impressive step forward since I previously saw them. The only downside was that a longer than expected set stored up problems for later, as we will see.

It was obvious from the moment Will Wilde arrived on stage that he has rock star charisma, sporting lank fair hair, a pair of cowboy boots and most eye catchingly a holster strapped across his chest housing his array of harmonicas, rather than reaching each time for a neatly arranged box as his counterparts might. It looked to me rather like the bullet belts old school metalheads used to sport, though he humorously recounted it was once described as resembling a ‘suicide bomber’s vest’!

He opened singing very confidently on ‘Wild Man’, an out and out rocker with a hint of Texas blues and cheekily autobiographical lyrics, yet showed his versatility to move between styles as the very next song ‘Stole My Love’ was a slow blues.

At this point the sound was further enriched when for the loose grooves of ‘Don’t Play With Fire’ and ‘Learn How To Love’, he brought on a couple of backing singers, in his sister Dani, a blues star in her own right, and Lindsey Bonnick of Brave Rival. This completed the circle neatly for me as the first time he really came on my radar as an artist I should check out was as a guest on my No 1 album of 2024, the latter’s ‘Fight or Flight’.

Heavily tattooed guitarist Bobby Harrison admirably filled the difficult role of generally playing second fiddle instrumentally-speaking, but unsurprisingly came into his own on the album title track, which in its studio version features Walter Trout, and which extended into quite the jam. In fact, this was very much a team effort as Will’s band was top class all round, and the keys of Greg Coulson were particularly prominent on ‘Gypsy Woman’.

The quality of the playing- and not only Will’s incendiary harmonica solos- made ‘Trouble Of That Girl’, ‘Broken Dream Blues’ and ‘Don’t Trust Me’, which reminded me of the old Chicago blues standard ‘Don’t Start Me Talking’, all very enjoyable. Indeed, by the time of a fun cover of the Fabulous Thunderbirds ‘I Believe I’m In Love’, featuring honky tonk style piano from Greg, I looked around and there were outbreaks of dancing in an increasingly lively crowd.

Appropriately enough Dani and Lindsey were brought back for ‘Girl’s Got Soul’ and if a harmonica player were to be allowed the luxury of just one cover, Canned Heat’s ‘On the Road Again’ would surely be it. He generously allowed a solo spotlight to each band member, starting with bassist Russell Carr and including drummer Steve Rushton. Unfortunately, combined with Star Circus overrunning and a hard 11 pm curfew, the encore on the published setlist of ‘Parisienne Walkways’ had to be omitted.

So I will have to wait to the next time to see how his harmonica playing gives a totally new twist to Gary Moore’s all-time classic. And there definitely will be a next time- the combination of charismatic performer and a high pedigree band made for an extremely enjoyable evening in the West End, and turned me from merely curious into a convert.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

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Power Plays w/c 21 April 2025

THE DEVIL WEARS NADA Late Night Talking (Eonian Records)
DROWNING POOL Madness (SBG Records)
PARKER BARROW Make It (indie)
REDIKIN Nailed It (Wormholedeath)
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CRY FOR MERCY Saving Grace (indie)
VIGILANTES Life In The Fast Brain (indie)

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09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Rock)
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