Shaman's Harvest / Blacktop Mojo Bristol Fleece 5-2-2025
Arrived at 715 for a local Bristol support that all communication had stated and venue website did until the doors opened and that then had changed to an 815 start !! Thank you.
Anticipation hung in the air for a UK tour featuring 2 American bands that had never reached these shores ever and as Blacktop Mojo hit the stage all huge riffs and pounding drums with magnificent vocals from Matt James the crowd went off.
From the reaction you would have never believed that this union of band and crowd had never happened and the band looked genuinely shocked as songs were sang back to them.
Where The Wind Blows was incredibly impressive with huge slabs of guitar riffs and the band ever moving and Matt's vocal filling in all the gaps and a fast fingered guitar solo too.
Trouble On The Rise showed more of the same and morphed mid song into Alice In Chains's Them Bones and they did that more than justice.
The hour set flew past and they ended with some Texas blues with It Won't Last with a simply stunning Matt vocal and lots of bluesey guitar soloing. As the song eased to an end Matt moved onto bass with Matt Curtis now onto guitar and we had a 3 guitarist noodle fest that brought it to a crescendo.
Magnificent.
After a short turnaround Shaman's Harvest made their UK bow with the swampy Red Hands Black Deeds before The Come Up kicked it all off with a driving drum rhythm from Adam Zamenek and guitarist's Josh Hamler and Derrick Shipp laying down riff after riff and Nathan Hunt's vocals deep and meaningful.
Dangerous has had more than 10 million plays on Youtube and its's huge riff and big chorus was sang back by the crowd with Cord Bishop on bass laying down a real groove and Derrick Shipp's short and fiery guiatr solo fitted in perfectly.
Bird Dog was superb with Nathan's vocal line fuelled by whisky and and the big chorus had great backing vocals and another Shipp lead guitar solo that led into Nathan's vocal outro from the Missouri swamps.
New single Rock N'Roll Queen was well received before Voices rose from an acoustic intro and melodic Nathan vocal up to a big chorus and a full band workout with Derrick soloing over the top and alongside Nathan too. Superb.
Country As F**k took it up a whole new level with Adam's pounding drum rhythm and the crowd favourite was sung back with gusto. Twin guitar soloing was all over the second half of the song and we all wanted more.
Which we got with the huge riff of In Chains which had some light and shade before Shipp's guitar solo exploded out of the silence.
Dragonfly ended the set from it's acoustic beginning and more light and shade and Nathan giving it his all before the song morphed into My Guitar Gently weeps giving and gave Shipp the chance to again impress with bursts of guitar soloing and the night was over.
Both bands were superb and it's amazing to think neither had played this side of the pond until this evening.
Get yourself along to any of the dates between now and the 29th of March you will not be disappointed !!
