Personally invited to tour the UK with Dom Martin after he saw them play in his (and their) homeland of Northern Ireland, Delta Fuse are eager to make the most of this opportunity.
A three-piece power trio playing the blues is the bare fact of the matter, but they are something truly wonderful beyond that.
On their bio, it claims they have songs about love, blues, booze, and sex, and Jack McHale has the type of voice that rather suggests he’s partial to all of them. He can play too, my goodness. Whether it’s the new single “Would You Like That” or “Laid It On The Table” from their debut a couple of years back, the Derry trio has something special for sure.
The smattering of covers they work into the set – “Fire,” Al Green’s “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart,” and the fun take on Muddy Waters’s “Got My Mojo Working” tell you much about where their influences lie, but it is the originals – an unreleased track “Sweat” and the first one on their first album, “Bloodhound” – that convince that they’re special.
Martin later calls Delta Fuse “the future of the blues,” and it’s not hard to see why.
Dom Martin had announced that his wonderful version of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” was to be his last song.
The guttural, abrasive way he plays it would have been a cracker of a way to end too, but there’s an encore (of sorts – they never actually leave the stage) of a quite stupendous, epic version of “Delta Black Hand.” Over the 26 minutes he’d played it, Martin, Ben Graham (bass), and Aaron McCloughlin (drums) had shown that no one comes close to them right now.
Something Martin had said before resonated, though. “I never wanted to do this,” he smiled. “You’s all think I’m joking.”
Reluctant though he might be, Martin and this new-look band (“hopefully I keep them for life, I’ve had to fire that many drummers and bass players”) are wonderful.
The just-released “Buried In The Hail” forms the backbone of this. An album that Martin says he’s “100% happy with,” and he’s eager to show it off.
The opening acoustics of “Hello In There” give way to a mesmerizing “The Fall” before the band joins him for the acerbic attack on modern politics, “Government.”
But if the show is generally about new material (and much of it makes good on his claim to “not play much blues”), then Rory Gallagher, as always, hangs over it. It’s impossible not to think of Rory when you watch Dom and the two Gallagher tunes he plays – “Messin’ With The Kid” and “Should Have Learnt My Lesson” visibly invigorate the band.
They play a trio from the new album as a kind of medley. The title track, “Daylight I Will Find,” and “Belfast Blues” see him play some incredible slide and find a more primal groove.
As this is a band show, there’s less of the storytelling he usually intersperses between songs. There’s a small one before “Lefty Two Guns” and a reflection on blues being a thing of joy before “Howlin’,” his tribute to Mr. Wolf, and he lets himself go here. It’s a wonderful thing.
But then, seeing Dom Martin always is. A reluctant performer he might be, but stick thin, with flowing hair and a shirt undone to the waist, he looks like a star.
Just the same as a blues player he might not be, but he carries the spirit of Rory Gallagher into the 21st century better than anyone.
Debate as much as you like about what he isn’t. I’ll just say what he is: as good as it gets and an incredibly charismatic performer.
