WILLE & THE BANDITS / DAN OWEN - RED ARROW MUSIC CLUB, RAMSGATE THURSDAY 20TH MARCH 2025
Reviewed by Laura DQ • 24 March 2025
Photos by Martin Miles
The unassuming seaside town of Ramsgate is perhaps an unlikely hotspot for live music, but boasts two of the best small venues in Kent. Tonight, the Red Arrow Music Club plays host to Wille and the Bandits, a band who don’t sit comfortably in any one genre, instead skewing their heavy blues riffs through the lens of a group willing to embrace funk, folk, and even rap. It feels very different, modern, and a breath of fresh air from the generic and sometimes bland rock that often seems to garner the most popularity.
Support comes from singer-songwriter Dan Owen, who jokes that he and Wille Edwards share the same hairdresser, both sporting similarly shaggy, mid-length styles. Owen’s musical style is somewhat more traditional, though no less impressive. Initially presenting as a one-man band, playing acoustic guitar, harmonica and stamping his foot, it’s his talent for a heart-wrenching ballad that shines; best of all, the tortured ‘Made to Love You’, a musing on why we might continue to love someone who hurts us. Maybe it wouldn’t hit quite as hard without Owen’s incredible voice, a showstopper that crackles with real emotion. His set concludes with a truly rollicking take on Willie Dixon’s ‘Little Red Rooster’, building to a frenzied, foot-stomping crescendo.
Hailing from Cornwall, Wille and the Bandits are a group seemingly in constant flux; band members coming and going over the years, but centred around the charismatic guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and lap-steel enthusiast Wille Edwards. Starting out as a power trio, the band is now a four-piece, augmented by keyboard player Stevie Watts, a bit of a regular at the Red Arrow and unquestionably very good at what he does. It’s impossible not to be struck by the power of the rhythm section; drummer Zac O’Loughlin adding significant oomph to the grooving ‘Make Love’ with a fantastic, percussive intro and the similarly bouncy ‘Keep it on the Down-Low’. Bassist Harry Mackail is no slouch either, the pair showing they can funk with the best of them on the semi-rapped ‘Chakra’.
It’s been three years since the band released their last album ‘When the World Stood Still’, which remains significant as a piece of work that reflected upon the Covid pandemic. The title track is a gentle thing of beauty, and recreated wonderfully this evening, with a real fragility in Edwards’ vocals. Lifted from the same album, ‘Caught in the Middle’ is contrastingly heavy, crashing in with a monster of a riff that keeps returning with a fearsome energy. Wille clearly writes about the things that matter to him, ‘Got to do Better’ yearning for a time when people are kinder to each other, ‘Living Free’ a simple reflection on the joy (apparently!) of hitting the road in a camper van. Edwards talks about losing his mother seventeen years ago and writing the song ‘Angel’ in her memory. Largely instrumental, bar some anguished cries of “mother” towards the end, it’s quite startling, a masterclass in composing an epic that never overstays its welcome.
Apparently, promoter Geoff Pine of the Red Arrow was one of the first to get Wille and the Bandits gigs outside of Cornwall. Now, fresh from support slots with the inimitable Beth Hart, it certainly feels like the band are on an upward trajectory. Catch them in these small venues while you still can, you won’t regret it.
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