The Duke And The King is a new project from Simone Felice (of The Felice Brothers). Not another Americana band of ernest balladeers I hear you cry….well, yeah, they are….and bloody good at it too. I was unfamiliar with their work and went along because friends were going (Kev was down from Aberdeen and had got tickets for himself, Mark and Steve, so Martin and I went along to see them as much as the bands).

First up was Neil McSweeney. it’s hard to be a quiet solo acoustic guitar player/singer when it’s early doors and people are chatting but he coped really well. Next up were The Croshaw Family who made a lovely noise with songs about trains. Turns out they really are related to each other.

The Duke and the King are a real band with each member playing several roles: The temptress violinist that gave a real country flavour to a lot of the songs and a sad weight to others, The drummer whos powerful voice boomed through the club, the baseball capped guitarist who looked like he’d been rescued from a shelter but obviously has talent to spare and the mainman Felice who got the crowd going, ‘lie-o-lie’ -ing along to ‘The Morning I Get To Hell’ and didn’t mind taking a backseat to let the others shine whilst he took a turn on the drums. A great set that included this Neil Young cover

They were obviously having a ball, getting so into it that they ended up on the floor jamming at one point and seemed happily surprised that the appreciative crowd knew their stuff. I didn’t, but on the strength of tonight’s performance, this is an album and back catalogue I’m looking forward to exploring. You can start with this Daytrotter.com session recorded a week ago

Bob the Chiropodist