Simon Rushworth@Newcastle The Cluny, February 25 2022
According to their revealing set closer, everything The Hot Damn! learned they learned from rock and roll.
It shows.
Educated in punk, garage rock, blues and more, these diligent students of dirty guitar music have done their homework.
And then some.
They’ve highlighted the classic hooks, stayed behind to nail the stagecraft and graduated top of the class in singalong anthems.
Just imagine if Joan Jett ran a rock school…
…The Hot Damn! would be the teacher’s pets.
And if there was an A-Level in The Go-Go’s this band would surely ace the final exam.
Hell, there’s even a hint of old school Girlschool underpinning The Hot Damn!’s heavier stuff.
If everything they’ve learned really is from rock and roll then it’s more than enough.
Because this brief but brilliant set was a lesson in pure entertainment.
The Hot Damn! reaches boiling point
Mirroring their marvellously retro line of tie-dye merch and colourful on-stage clobber (we’re looking at you Lzi), The Hot Damn!’s kaleidoscopic sound is on trend and on point.
Clinging to the coat tails of the buoyant NWOCR movement, the eye-catching four piece is fashioning standout fist-pumpers with singalong flair.
Of course, frontwoman Jill Montgomery always cut a dash as the dominant force behind The Amorettes.
And yet The Hot Damn! appears a far more natural fit for one of the NWOCR’s most valuable assets.
Flanked by the fret-burning Laurie Buchanan and the flamboyant Lzi Hayes, Montgomery flew out of the blocks on set opener Catch Me If You Can.
But the pace never slackened as four pals thrown together by the NWOCR scene proved there’s no point living in the past.
New tune Figure It Out (it’s a working title that could yet stick) allowed former Tequila Mockingbyrd Josie O’Toole the opportunity to let rip.
And the hilariously brutal I Didn’t Like You Anyway put a smile on faces of old fans and new converts alike.
It seems that what The Hot Damn! learned most from rock and roll is that it’s necessary to commit 100%…without ever taking yourself too seriously.
In the post-pandemic age no-holds-barred fun is still at a premium.
But when The Hot Damn! urged The Cluny crowd to Dance Around the floodgates well and truly opened.
These Wicked Rivers bank success
As usual, classy co-headliners These Wicked Rivers were awash with heavy blues and gritty Southern rock.
Brilliant, brooding tunes spilled out from beneath the band’s meandering beards and wide-brimmed hats.
And hugely affecting songs like Hit The Ground underlined a burning ambition to make it big.
New tune Riverboat Man leant on an addictive military beat before frontman John Hartwell channelled his inner Layne Staley to dizzying effect.
Think Cream meets Alice In Chains…with trademark Rivers cool.
Set closer Don’t Pray For Me was a prime example of peak Hartwell.
An epic song ebbed and flowed as Rivers’ emotive vocalist built on the chimes of a traditional church organ intro. to craft a monumental piece of work.
Leaning heavily on the entirely apt lyric ‘rock and roll never dies’, Hartwell invariably means what he says and says what he means.
These Wicked Rivers might often look and sound like a band out of time.
But this should be their time. Right here, right now.