“A desire to be melodic, yet modern—but with a sound rooted in the classics—Blue Nation have got something.”
To be fair, I could have written that last night because it’s all true, but I didn’t. I actually wrote it in February 2019. I had just watched the Brummie trio—singer and guitarist Neil and bassist Luke are still here tonight—open for The Virginmarys and the then-unknown Florence Black.
Not, you’d think, the natural hinterland for your more classic rock trio (and this bill is a better fit for sure), but the truth is you could stick them on any show, and they’d play their hearts out but also absolutely fit in.
They are simply a superb rock band. “Hand Me Down” and “Good Times” exemplify that. for them, but there’s something else about Blue Nation, and you suspect that it’s just as—if not more—important to them: they seem to be extremely decent people too.
They are friendly and warm onstage in a way that only true friends can be, and that comes across again and again.
Yet, they are fine musicians too (drummer Oli is also in Saving Grace) and Neil’s solo in “Gimme Some Time” is superb.
They are raising money for men’s mental health and dedicate “Strangers” to anyone suffering. The track itself has an almost US arena rock vibe.
Confident and classy as ever, “Down By The River” ends a set that underlines yet again what a gem Blue Nation are.
“I don’t play these shows because I have to,” reckons Dom Martin about two-thirds of his way through the set here. “I play them because I need to.”
And that is the most important distinction to make. He doesn’t just play the guitar when he does his closing 25-minute jam, which includes “Dixie Black Hand,” but goes everywhere else too. He seems to channel it. Talk through it. It is quite something.
He does that with bass player Ben Graham and Aaron McLaughlin on drums, but he’d started the show alone, just the man and his acoustic guitar. Indeed, “show” doesn’t seem the right word, given there’s nothing “showy” about Martin at all.
More so, he is simply a modern blues genius (I’ve thought about the word and it’s the right one). The way he does “The Fall” or the way he does John Martyn’s “The Easy Blues” and makes it his own only happens if you are exactly that.
He’s evolving too. There’s a new song—not introduced by its name, but which is very Tom Waits in the way he delivers the vocals—but one of the older songs, “Daylight I Will Find,” includes some mighty slide guitar to almost bring it back to normal.
He does “Belfast Blues,” and of course, he’s rooted in that sound, but the soulful “Blues On The Bay” shines here, as does “Unhinged.”
One thing you can never fail to notice about Martin is the way he makes covers like Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” his own. They are never facsimiles. That said, he sticks reasonably close to Rory Gallagher’s take on “Messin’ With The Kid,” perhaps realising that you can’t, well, mess with perfection.
It is a changed Dom Martin show tonight. There’s a lot less talking, a lot less of the harrowing tales of his troubled past, yet the emotions flow through the guitar.
Evidently cathartic for him, the last night of this tour—he’s never off the road, so he’ll be back somewhere next week, I’m sure—is special.
For him, too. As he points out: “You think you’ve come to see us. Really, we’ve come… to see you,” he says. And while that doesn’t seem like a throwaway remark, it would probably be best to call it a draw. Dom Martin is an incredibly talented individual that you are simply compelled by.
