Dust Radio take the opportunity to showcase their studio material at the outer extremities of the Colne R & B Festival. And they nailed it!

Walking through the steep incline of the Colne main street to the Union Exchange venue, you get a flavour of  the  festival,  a trad blues band  in the Bees Knees,  buskers performing all genres of music including Paul Simon, fairground music and even a mobile  Elton John impersonator in full Victorian military garb with wheeled piano and candelabra. Wading through the throngs of drinkers soaking up the atmosphere, the possibility of the smoky whisky blues bar  that fashioned the Dust Radio studio albums whet the appetite. Nobody was let down!

As Dust Radio set up their second gig of the day most people in the room were more interested in the huge screen showing football but as they realised their listening would be musically interrupted they left to leave a meagre group, anticipating an hour or so of sublime romping harmonica based blues. 

They weren’t disappointed. Although the starkness of venue in no way replicated the smoky darkness exuded by their studio albums, gradually, the tables filled and Dust Radio had a decent audience to play to.

As Paddy Wells astonishes everyone in the room, some possible newcomers to the Dust Radio sound offer a great response to the tight and exhilarating blues. Tom Jackson on guitar gently adds his blues riffs whilst tapping out the beat electronically with his feet (which is no mean feat!). Stu Baggaley drives along the rhythm in support on bass.

Dust Radio don’t have an extensive amount of recorded music to draw on with just their Shotgun Shack EP (review here) and their 2023 digital album, Problem and Remedy (review here). They draw on the help of a handful of covers in filling their hour and a quarter slot with a some raucous foot stomping blues.

As well as the title tracks in the set the rest including, Dead Man’s Crawl, By Way of Fat Sam, Gallows Pole, Siren Song are self penned by Tom and Paddy. Serve Somebody was amongst the covers used to bolster the set but whatever they played was met with much approval.

Anyone who invested some coin in Shotgun Shack or downloaded Problem  and Remedy will have a great memory of the free show which will hopefully turn into punters heading out to see Dust Radio again in the future. 

Earlybird tickets for the 2024 Great British R & B Festival in Colne are available here.

Dust Radio: Bandcamp / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

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