Live Review

Seasick Steve – Manchester Academy 2

• 17th Oct 2007

For once a show that didn’t have anything to do with WHO you knew, WHICH bands you know that no one else knows, and WHAT you wear, but more about good stories, good tunes and good times.

Feeling like I’d been transported back about 45 years, aside from the technological side, with Simple Kid’s hippy look and chilled out attitude to life and performance, it made for a very enjoyable half hour. But then really who can not enjoy thirty minutes accompanied by Kermit the Frog on a big screen for one song, watching the composition and progress of the song on a music programme on the big screen, and reading off the lyrics to the song, yet again, on the big screen. It was very clever, yet felt like a less political (thank goodness) and happier get Cape. Wear cape Fly.

One boy, his guitar and his computer. Simple Kid = Good times.

I was already thinking how surreal the whole set up was, the crowd was the biggest mix of genders, ages and styles and absolutely rammed full. Watching Seasick Steve was definitely the “best of” many things. It was the best show I’ve been to at Academy 2. It was the best crowd I’ve experienced, from audience participation and patience and he was the best act for his talent, his stories and the way he dealt with heckling throughout the show. Playing songs for the ladies, and getting out his 3-stringed guitar bought from a junk shop with the wrong 3 strings in the wrong places. It was simply brilliant. You can tell that the fame hasn’t gone to his head and he seems very grateful for the fact that people turn up to watch him play. It wasn’t Blues, Seasick Steve doesn’t like the blues, it was more country, southern American fun. Each song was introduced with a story, included much audience participation, from keeping his beats to singing the choruses, and many included a lesson on what he was talking about.

Songs about living on the streets, ending up in jail and even Chiggers, all meant that everyone left satisfied. The encore was “the best” encore and the show was most unquestionably something more than fantastic.