Music / Reviews
Review: Chantel McGregor, The Tunnels
The Tunnels’ splendid booking policy brought Chantel McGregor back for her second visit this year, just the latest in a series of excellent broadly blues based acts to have visited one of the most welcoming and fan-friendly venues in Bristol.
Starting the show with a complaint about the poor state of the city’s curries (a rogan josh “that was more like tomato soup”) had the crowd laughing as McGregor and her ridiculously tight band eased in to the set.
She stated early on that she would be playing the entire soon-come second album and judging from the material played the only difficulty with her second record will be picking your favourite tune.
is needed now More than ever
A delightfully extended version of Daydream allowed the band to stretch out but alas the set was marred with drum sound issues that threatened to derail the set. A break to deal with the problem saw the barefoot McGregor return with two new acoustic numbers.
Now while blues players often use the acoustic interlude to show off their picking skills, McGregor’s tunes allowed the crowd to dig what a fantastically gifted singer she is as well as a natural player.
The second half of the set featured more new material sprinkled with choice cuts the debut – Fabulous getting the crowd grooving as always, and whilst the drum problems appeared to have been solved it has to be said that at times they threatened to overwhelm the guitar and bass.
That said, McGregor’s easygoing and likeable banter made up for the intermittent sound deficiencies and the strength of the material shone through.
Closing the set with an unreleased prog epic may have seen a bizarre move for a blues act, but then most of the first wave of prog outfits started out as blues bands and their contemporaneous axe slinging buddies often played blues that were truly progressive, like Hendrix and Trower.
A welcome return to The Tunnels then. Hopefully the band will be back when the second LP is released, and fingers crossed Bristol’s curry houses will have had time to bring their fare up to the standards of Bradford.
Photo by Doug Bearne
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