Swamp Candy at the Kilkenny Cat

Thursday night saw American duo, Swamp Candy, visit the Kilkenny Cat for the first time in five years. A healthy crowd was there early to see open act, the Liam Ward band, set the mood with some dirty urban blues. The music could have come straight from the streets of Chicago but was actually being played by four very talented local musicians. The duelling of guitarist Matt Jones' licks and vocalist, Liam Ward‘s harmonica was held solid by the experienced rhythm section of Gaz Drums on drums and Martin Hill on bass.

Headlining band, Swamp Candy, were certainly not local. If you couldn’t discern this from their choice of instruments; a double bass player with a kick drum and a vocalist playing a steel guitar, then vocalist Ruben Dobbs’ southern drawl really gave the game away. Their set started with some toe-tapping delta blues which soon turned into some real foot-stomping barn-burners. Ruben’s entertaining and humorous introductions to each song immersed the crowd in a world of whiskey drinking, cheating spouses, murder ballads and more whiskey.

The opening set saw everything from heartfelt laments of whiskey and girlfriends gone to high energy skiffle tunes of whiskey and girlfriends yet to come. Just as entertaining as listening to their music was to watch double bass player Joey Mitchell getting carried off into a trance in his own world while keeping his percussive style going. Despite a couple of double Jameson’s to try to cool them down, in the heat of a full pub in full swing, the band took a well deserved break to cool down before they passed out.

When they returned they were joined by female vocalist, Gina. Whereas the nasty deep blues style of the first set may have been familiar to the audience through the likes of Seasick Steve, the second set was more reminisce of The Handsome Family (a husband-wife Americana/Alternative country duo from Albuquerque that impressed when I saw them in the uplands last year) particularly through the stories being sung by each vocalist to each other.

The audience and the band both thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the gig and the band did seem genuinely disappointed when they ran out of time and had to head off to their next gig. It’s been a while since I have bought a gig t-shirt but I felt I had to as this was the sort of band I would have normally expected to pay £15 a ticket for and to leave without giving the band something would have felt as though I had stolen from them.