Ross Stewart and Band - Sells Out Voodoo Daddy's Showroom

Plenty of Spare Change - Then Some!

Vieira and The Silvers - Live at Red Rooster 2024

Main Stage, 1st June 2024

Saturday, 1^st June, is day three of the tenth Red Rooster Festival.  The relentless cool breeze has blown in some dry weather and there are people, kids mostly, leaping off the springboard into the Black Bourn that runs through the grounds of Euston Hall.

 

The woodland ringing the big top holding the main stage, is filled with picnic chairs and tables, beer coolers and the well-insulated festival goers, enjoying life outside without being rained on.  There are a lot of Red Rooster regulars there.  They seem relaxed and easy-going.  The music an essential part of their picnic dining, BBQing, summer cruising and boozing existence. It’s all very suburban and comfortable, all very BBC Radio 2.

 

Yet, weaving through all the folding chairs and circles of camping music-lovers, putting all that behind me, stepping into the big tent, I discover a buzzing full house.  There is a lot of excitement being stirred up by the many younger folk from Norwich and London here, all excited to be seeing Vieira and The Silvers.

 

Diogo Vieira Da Silva comes on stage with his band.  With a harmonica BB King-style tooting and wailing he leads them off with Fire In The Breeze.  It is a belting introduction to the set.  The opener begins with a bluesy swagger and changes of pace that knock the swelling crowd about, like punches from a heavy-weight boxer. Jab. Jab. Pow! Pow! Jab. Pow!  Straight away, Vieira has them on the ropes.

Here is a front man with real front.  A sleek, rocker who has a haunted visage, as if he has strode straight off the set of the 1969 cult movie, Easy Rider.  He has that look: shaggy main, tight jeans, loosely fitting shirt.  Vieira is blessed with rock star looks and the energy and eyes to take your attention hostage.

 

With barely a breath, Hey Stranger! comes steaming in.  The trio of backing vocalists that is Trish Margolis, Nancy Dunnell and Cathy Sole has already stamped their marque on the set and they are quite superb.  A little way toward the back and side of the stage, they add further acoustic and visual value to the show.  It is fab to hear such accomplished singers filling out the sound of the band.  Not that Vieira’s resonating tones need backing at all.  He is a master of the mic.

I have said, elsewhere, this Vieira guy is a rare bird.  He is a little bit Jim, a little bit Iggy, but he is entirely himself.  Unphased by the thousand or so people in his palm.  He runs the show.

 

The songs are edgy.  The lyrics more than rock.  There is a darkness and deepness. Who is The Judge?  The songs come in original forms, shapes and sizes.  These are not verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, chorus numbers, but something infinitely more interesting, but no less catchy.

 

The band smashes out the groove and stirs things up. The set progresses and the crowd are really into it.  Dirty blues, rocking beats.  Everyone is bouncing along to the bassy tunes, led tonight by Matty Kennedy, with Lennon McBarron on drums.  Cormac Coyle’s saxophone gives matters an early-Stooges griminess, while the guitars of Ben Curling and Kain McBarron duck and dive through it all.  Mark Bromley’s keys come into play here and there, filling out any possible gaps in a wall of sound.

Who Loves You, Baby? and Grasping for Love are established Vieira and The Silvers classics and duly delivered.  How good would it be to hold these tunes on a proper vinyl disc, with a beautiful sleeve capturing the stunning visual look of this band and its charismatic headman?  It would be a great testament to the dramatic impact the original Silvers gang had on the post-pandemic live music scene.  They brought the old city of Norwich back to life with their dramatic stage shows. They later hit trendy London’s Hackney / Dalston / Haggerston hep-zone with something of the same.  Where are they heading now?

 

There were a couple of tracks unfamiliar to me in this Red Rooster set, but it was a belting performance from the band, a well-developed setlist, including Sheep, all handled magnificently from the front.  The crowd were thrilled. Red Rooster might be an Americana festival, verging at times on the genteel, but this was the down and dirty, everyone really came out for, if they're honest.

 

How will things develop for this band?  Where will Diogo Vieira da Silva’s writing and performing take him?  It occurred to me that if Vinny Jones can make it in Hollywood, Diogo Vieira surely could.

Photos courtesy of Roy Cano Photography

Review by Spencer Ide

1st June 2024