The blues currently has many new young names knocking on the door. All with their own style. Think of D.K. Harrell, Sean “Mack” McDonald, Taj Farrant and perhaps the one who has already made it the furthest, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
Being seen as the future of the blues at the age of 22 after winning a Grammy award for your “662” album can be a heavy burden on your shoulders, we have seen that with several blues talents. With Kingfish there is not much of that noticeable.
After a restless intro by his band, the master entered the stage and from the start with “Midnight Heat” and “Fresh Out” it was a hit. Wonderfully long drawn out songs with solos by the master himself and by keyboardist D-Vibes. Fortunately there were also quiet moments with “Another life goes by” where the beautiful voice of Kingfish comes into its own, a beautiful dark warm voice.
In the quiet songs he knows how to dose his guitar solos nicely. From quietly building to tearing, especially in “Empty Promises” this really adds value to the song.
That Kingfish has taken a good look at his mentor Buddy Guy was evident in “Not Gonna Lie”. While the band played the time he suddenly appeared in the hall.
While everyone was looking back at the stage he appeared on the balcony. “Mississippi Night” was started from the balcony. A sign that the band is very well attuned to each other.
What stood out during the entire set was the chemistry between Kingfish and keyboardist Brother D-Vibes (Deshawn D’Vibes Alexander). Regularly smiling at each other, a punch when Kingfish walks off the stage. One of the highlights of the evening was a duel between the two with D-Vibes on his guitar synthesizer.
How the transition from blues to funk and back again works, I don’t understand, but it sounded fantastic “sexmachine” mixed into “Hard times”. The set had a good build-up, as evidenced by a quiet successor, “Rock & Roll”, written for his prematurely deceased mother.
I have the feeling that artists are increasingly looking at their Spotify list. Kingfish also ended with his two top songs “Outside of This Town” and my favorite, the title track of his second album, “662”. At the beginning of the encore, D-Vibes was allowed to steal the show.
I looked him up at home and the penny dropped when I read that he has a Funk band himself. He cheered up the audience and kept them musically busy with a funky medley that included “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles. Kingfish slowly started to ping along from the wings and as he came up he started with the solid “Long Distance Woman”.
What a fantastic song this remains. The closing song was a wonderful slow version of “Hey Joe” with a few blazing solos and some reggae tones.
Whether Kingfish will be the future of the blues remains to be seen. This show was much funkier than we are used to. Don’t be surprised if it goes more in that direction. A new studio album will show that. Hopefully it will come soon because his last studio album “662” is already from 2021. But it was a fantastic evening.
