Music, Real Ale, Real Talent

The University Common Room Sheffield
Saturday May 21st 2011

The University Big Band

SUBB is Sheffield University’s own Big Band, organised and led entirely by current Music Students.
Glenn Miller to The Pink Panther nice surprise to the start of the day 17 very accomplished students playing material 50/70 years old a bit like the blues artists of today.

Twins

The next afternoon slot was filled by local Indie/Pop type band Twins, with more than a resemblance to Kate Bush, lead singer and band leader Gina Walters has a very good voice but lacks the stage presence that will surely come in time, after all this was their first gig.

The Hummingbirds Blues Band

Just the opposite to the last band this experienced blues band hit all of the right notes with their set of blues standards being played with a twist, that twist being lead guitar and lead sax and it worked the bass player and drummer sharing the vocals, this set led us up to the break where homemade steak pie and peas were on sale and very nice they were.

Alex McKown Band

I have seen a lot of this 14 year old “Blues Prodigy” as Paul Jones described him on his Radio 2 Blues programme, and he just gets better and better, his guitar playing is to be honest as good as any “guitar slinger” playing the blues circuit at the moment and his vocals and presentation are slick with none of the nerves that you would expect from a 14 year old, I keep saying it remember this name Alex McKown he is going to be a star.

Derrin Nauendorf

The good looking lad from Australia, Derrin has been wooing the punters at festivals all over Europe since he came to Britain over 7 years ago, the man is sheer class his guitar playing is second to none and with his percussion on the body of the guitar he is exciting, entertaining and a pleasure to watch and listen to.

The Frank White ‘All Star’ Band

Frank started his set with a couple of tracks from his 1988 album the first being “Broadway” the drifters classic, on this number Frank delivered a blistering solo which took your breath away, this was followed by the old Lee Dorsey number “You Don’t Love Me No More”.

Frank has been playing the blues scene since the early sixties when he was playing with Dave Berry and Jimmy Crawford, on piano Frank had his son Joel (Pulp, Finley Quaye) who joined him on several harmony numbers including The Everly Bros “Let It Be Me” which certainly got the people dancing, the set included a couple of Sam Cooke numbers which suited Franks voice to a tee.