Robert Jon & The Wreck Laura Evans Oran Mor, Glasgow Wednesday 18th May 2022

These guys are effortlessly good musicians with delightful four-part harmonies and virtuoso showings, especially from Henry James on guitar and keys man Steve Maggiora, who is back from tour duty with Toto in time for this show. Importantly though, despite relentlessly brilliant soloing from James in particular, there’s no self-indulgent wankery and they keep everything in proportion and within the context of the songs. And what songs they are too. The twin-guitar magic of ‘Do You Remember’ is an early highlight and a mid-set rendition of the perfect ‘On Miss Carolina’ is sublime, particularly the seminal moment where the guitar solo is followed by a vocal-only take down before a stone-cold classic drum break ushers the return of the band and their swelling harmonies to conclude the song.

Other highlights include the melancholic euphoria of ‘Tired of Drinking Alone’ and the funky kiss-off of ‘Old Friend’ before the evangelical blues of ‘Shine a Light on Me Brother’ and an absolutely epic extended rendition of ‘Cold Night’ close the set. Robert Jon delivers an absolutely commanding performance as the front man. He sets the tone with a focused and passionate delivery and the band’s interaction is a joy to behold with kudos to cool dude Warren Murrell on bass and singing drummer Andrew Espantman who play their parts magnificently.

The band have now reached the end of the UK leg of their extensive 50+ date tour of Europe. It’s an important territory for them and they will be recording a live album in Belgium at the end of June which will surely push them even further into the big time. In my view, they’ve already attained greatness and global domination must inevitably follow.

Talented singer-songwriter, Laura Evans opened the show with a short set previewing her forthcoming album ‘State of Mind’ which will be released on 1st July 2022. On this evidence the album will be a cracker. ‘Solo’ starts things in a bluesy way and she delivers an interesting take on Chris Stapleton’s ‘Arkansas’ early in the set too.

With her long blonde hair and authentic country-blues vocals, you could easily imagine that the tanned and toned Laura was from Nashville, but she’s actually Welsh. She introduced the song ‘Fool’ by explaining that she’d “had her heart broken many times but at least she’d got an album out of it”. Why not – it worked for Adele. She has a powerful voice and also has a typically engaging manner with the crowd, who quickly warm to her. The title track from the new album is also very impressive and you can already pre-order it on iTunes at a bargain price.

The live acoustic format works well and Laura is expertly accompanied by acclaimed session-guitarist Joe Coombs. Hopefully Joe was not intimidated by the fact that one of Laura’s previous sidekicks was Basil Brush, dating back to when she was a teen-actor! Some of the songs have already been released as singles and sound even better with a plugged-in band format. The fuzzed-up and infectious ‘I’m Alright’ is one and the newly released ‘Fire with Fire’ is even better. It is melodic and hummable and crosses over into AOR territory in a very good way - my absolute favourite of her songs so far.

Laura will hopefully have increased her profile with this tour and the album release should attract further attention. She is planning to tour later in the year and that will be one to look out for too.