Arriving early, we found out that the doors didn’t open until 8 on the dot. So we chatted to some of the other early birds that were gathered out of the cold, in the tiny foyer of Mr Kyps.We quickly found out that Never The Bride has some devoted fans in the South West and were assured that we would be in for a real treat tonight.
All alone on the stage, except for her Guitar and her voice, Susy Thomas quickly shows the steadily growing crowd that these two things, combined with an exceptional song writing ability, is enough to warrant an acoustic performer supporting a fully fledged band. Singing powerful ballads with real emotion and happily chatting away to the audience in between songs, she delivered an electrifying performance.
Never the Bride take to the stage and from the moment Nikki Lamborn starts to sing, you could tell we were all going to have a blast. And I do mean blast; Nikki’s outstanding vocal capacity near takes the roof off. Roger Daltrey described her as ‘best female rock voice since Janis Joplin’, well… add Robert Plant and a touch of Meatloaf’s rock operatics thrown in for good measure and you’re close. But kudos has to go also to her partner in crime Catherine ‘Been’ Feeney on writing such magnificent songs with her to compliment that voice. Catherine plays the keyboards and guitar and with talented musicians such as Murray Gold on lead guitar, Greg Harwood on Bass and Richard Newman (who played with my favourite guitarist Rory Gallagher) on the drums.
Live, their Ballard based blues-rock sounded awesome, all of these guys clicked and delivered a polished and exhilarating performance that had the crowd ecstatic. Highlights were ‘Kiss, Kiss’ and ‘The Living Tree’ which has been covered by Dame Shirley Bassey, various cover versions were aired but all had Never The Brides own unique stamp on them.
An audience member bought a round of Tequilas and had them delivered up on stage to the band, who were visibly moved by the gesture.
A great night was had by all and I for one will definitely catching them again the next time they are down here.
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