Revival Black - Leo's Red Lion live revi

Revival Black

Leo’s Red Lion, Gravesend

12th September 2020

Live review and photos; by Myk

Another week and another Rock Co-Operative promoted gig at Leo’s Red Lion in Gravesend.

The sold out show this week is Revival Black who have travelled 6 hours down from Liverpool and like many others have not played live in 6 or 7 months.

They are a little apprehensive as they fear they may be a bit rusty and freely admit they are a bit short of material as they only have the one album in the locker, but what an album it is.

They kick off with ‘So Alive’ and before the gig Dan suggested he may hold back a little so as not to blow his voice, well that idea lasted about one line.

There was no evidence of rustiness and any nerves disappeared as soon as they started playing. They then ripped through ‘Hold Me Down’ before new number ‘Believe’, well it’s not that new as they had been playing it on the Rising Tour earlier in the year before everything went into lockdown. Then onto ‘All I Wanna Do’ and ‘Give You The World’, before a rare outing for ‘Silverline, the band is on fire with nothing to suggest the long absence has affected their game. Ash and James providing the rock solid rhythm allowing Alan to let rip more than ably supported by the imposing Adam, whilst upfront Dan comes across as a mix of Paul Rodgers and David Coverdale back in his bluesy Whitesnake days. He commands the stage and draws the crowds total attention.

Deep Purple’s ‘Burn’ is up next and cut short as it links into ‘The River’, another stand out track from an album overflowing with stand outs. We then get a real new song ‘Wrong Side’ that sounds fantastic and bodes very well for the next album that is slated for a mid-2021 release, all going well. But given how mad the world is at the moment that may well change.

We are then served a bit of a curve ball as they play a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’, absolutely unexpected but brilliant, given that they had only played it once in rehearsal. Next up is a trio of tracks from the album with my personal favourite up first, a smouldering dirty blues number ‘Midnight Oil’, before we get treated to ‘No Secrets, No Lies’ and the sublime album title track ‘Step In Line’ and that’s it, but after a brief call for more we are treated to a stunning cover of CCR’s ‘Fortunate Son’ with Dan encouraging the crowd to join in, not that a lot of cajoling was needed.

Then they finished proceedings off with yet another superb number ‘Wide Awake’, but just as we thought it was over thanks to a special request from the Rock Co-Operative we were then treated to another stunning run through of ‘The Chain’.

Wow this is band that is going places; they have all the right personnel, write great tunes and can perform at an exceptionally high level.

To give them just 5/5 seems insulting, they were that good.

Revival Black are;

Dan Byrne - Vocals

Alan Rimmer - Lead Guitar

Adam Kerbache - Rhythm Guitar

Jamie Hayward - Bass Guitar

Ash Janes – Drums

Social Media Links;

https://www.revivalblack.com/

https://www.facebook.com/RevivalBlackOfficial/

https://www.facebook.com/leosredlion