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Take a trip to the Robin 2. This great venue in the Bilston district of Wolverhampton is easy to find and the
folks there are very friendly too!
It’s our second visit to this quirky Brum venue although tonight, sadly, Dunc and I are
disappointed to find there are no pork, stuffing and gravy rolls on offer after the show.
We are here to enjoy some blistering Canadian boogie blues from PT and company. Celebrating 50 years on the planet
this year, it seems Pat hasn’t lost any of his affection for playing in this country. Since his celebrated opening here in 1976, he has revisited these shores en route to mainland Europe on many occasions.
The show opens with a hell-for-leather rendition of ‘Hooked on Music’ with its funky solo section and jazz chords – a very tasty start! The set
simmers with a mix of both older material and Traver’s more recent blues orientated catalogue.
‘Crash and Burn’, a highlight
of the 1980 album of the same name, is a firm favourite and a most pleasant surprise given the original relies heavily on an organ backing. There are no keyboards in sight tonight. Pat’s guitar takes the strain
over Rick Navarro’s hypnotic bass line to good effect, proving you don’t need keys to pull off this great song live.
Rick shows
us what a fantastic bass player he is by giving us a slap solo. There are separate feature spots for Pat and drummer Eric ‘Freight-Train’ Frates a little later too.
With a bit of audience participation, the set ends with ‘Boom boom (out go the lights)’, just one of many highlights on Pat’s 1976 debut album. The
encore is a stormy cover of ‘Born under a bad sign’.
Finally, an old Animals number ‘Inside Looking Out’ gets a bit of push. It’s just one of ten magical tracks on a CD Travers released in 2003
with legendary drummer Aynsley Dunbar and bassist Gunther Nezhoda called ‘PT Power Trio’. The album also includes a hot rendition of the Robin Trower signature tune ‘Day of the Eagle’ and is well worth
adding to your collection! Check it out!
Well done PT, a great show for a great venue! See you again next time!
Set List: Hooked on Music; Life in London; Just enough money (to buy me a case of the blues); Crash and Burn; The Pain; Elijah;
Stevie; Whipping Post; Sometimes I feel like dyin’ too; Boom boom; Born under a bad sign; Inside Looking Out.
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