Vintage Trouble | Standin' Man, The Queen’s Hall Edinburgh 29th July 2023

They start with a slide guitar intro to the bluesy ‘Run Like the River’ before Ty Taylor explodes onto the stage, where he metaphorically grabs the audience by the balls and appropriate lady parts, and keeps them contentedly in his pocket for the rest of the night. I believe the only song repeated from their Murrayfield set supporting Bon Jovi in 2011 was the classic ‘Blues Hand Me Down’ which is the second song on the roster tonight. No one who has seen their incendiary performance of this song blowing up ‘Late Night with Letterman’ around that time will doubt its impact in their hands and I did briefly wonder if, despite the excellence of subsequent albums, they have slightly under-achieved since then given their massive potential and flying start? They are no secret to their strong and devoted ‘Troublemaker’ fan base but the sky should truly be the limit for talent of this quality.

Their brand new and exceptionally good album ‘Heavy Hymnal’ should firmly re-address that if there’s any justice in the world, but based on the lyrical themes permeating the album, Ty clearly believes there is work to be done on the justice-for-all front. They start a run of 6 consecutive songs from the new album with the joyful RnB of ‘You Already Know’ and include a protest song called ‘Holla’ with Ty getting the audience to join in with the testifying. That’s quite appropriate in this converted church venue which still features pews for the faithful. Vintage Trouble have been here before with a memorable pre-Hogmanay show in 2016 so there’s a genuine bond between the Queens Hall crowd and the band.

Since that night, Ty has gone through a big break-up and that has partly inspired songs like the fool-baiting ‘Not the One’ and the regretful ‘The Love That Once Lingered’. On the new album, the latter is a duet with Lady Blackbird but on this tour her part is sung by Dean Fairhurst – the Standin’ Man from the support act of that name. There is clearly a bond between the two acts built while touring together in Europe. Ty generously introduced them on stage at the start of their performance and VT’s guitar deity Nalle Colt also sat in on one number. Dean / Standin’ Man are from Warrington and they come over a bit like Oasis without the ASBOs in delivering a fine set of post-Britpop janglers and their turbo-charged performance of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ injects some much-needed oomph into the Beatles’ dirge. Dean is an engaging character but, bless him, he commits the ultimate never-in-Scotland faux-pas by expressing “how good it is to be back in England”! He’s probably lucky he was not at the Barrowlands but he gets away with it and a very-well received set of songs digs him out of that particular hole.

Away from the stage, Ty has had some success acting in TV and movies so he can easily emote his way through a show, alternately playing the part of the poor heart-broken lover, rabble-rousing activist and silver-tongued preacher at times, albeit it’s CDs he’s shamelessly peddling not snake oil. He clearly enjoys hearing the words of his recently-written songs belted out back to him and also takes things down a notch with an acapella call-and-response excerpt from ‘Nothing Compares 2U’ in tribute to the recently deceased Sinead O’Connor. Not all heroes wear capes, and although he sometimes looks like he is ready for the services of James Brown’s cape-man, Ty is actually sporting more of a tail attached to his suit this time and also an ‘Unjudge Someone’ T-shirt which references a new song lyric. Ty leaves the stage for a while in order to showcase the instrumental talents of the absolutely outstanding band who have always been Vintage Trouble; Nalle Colt (guitar), Rick Barrio Dill (bass) and Richard Danielson (drums). Having already survived some crowd-surfing, Ty subsequently popped up on the balcony to re-engage with the band on ‘Shinin’’ from the new album. Once back on stage after a crowd walk-through, he confessed to a Spinal Tap moment whereby an exit through the wrong door took him outside the venue and into a brick wall and that is what had required the band to jam on a bit longer than planned, but absolutely no-one is complaining as they were sublime.

Ty does like a chat and a sermon with his people but there is still time for a cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Higher Ground’ from the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers movie, although I believe some guy called Stevie Wonder also had a version before that and he might be Ty’s hero! The beautiful and heartbreaking ‘Another Man’s Words’ from 2015’s ‘1 Hopeful Rd’ is another late-set highlight, along with Heavy Hymnal’s signature song ‘Repeating History’ and finally ‘Knock Me Out’.

It was yet another electrically-charged sold-out VT night at the grand old venue and it’s hard to imagine that all 900 souls in attendance won’t be back for more when the band next grace Edinburgh with their presence. Once word gets out, they might need a bigger room but then again, the old church venue does feel appropriate and the emotional connection for the band seems genuine, so get the prayer mats out and hope it’s not too long before these boys are back in this part of town.