Blast From the Past - Rob Heron and Blackheart
Charles Paxton November 23rd, 2007
Rob Heron On Guitar At Centre 67 again, it’s March 30 and PhasingHz have laid on a great show, Rob Heron is going to open for Blackheart. The array of guitars and Chris Archer’s professional lighting set-up look extremely promising. Every table’s taken by the time they start.Rob opens and his set is all original and earns loud applause. His pleasant fusion of folk and indie has an upbeat tempo that carries the audience along and sets feet thumping. He’s an accomplished guitarist having played in several bands, but now he’s proving himself a capable soloist with a style of his own that puts me in mind of a British Tom Petty. His main influences are The Waterboys, Bob Dylan and Jackson Brown.
Rob Heron lays down some fine indie blues and sets feet thumping at Center 67Music is his passion, and he’s planning to study it at university and make it a career. It should be a good one. His Cafe No.15 events have been consistently packed, he’s good on the promotion side too.
Blackheart live at Center 67, passionate, polished and professional.Richard Pilkington and Chrisy Mostyn of Blackheart follow Rob with a performance that was extremely polished and professional. In no time at all we know that we’re in the company of great Troubadors. Richard’s guitar work is exquisite, his picking is simply awesome (I should say awesome in its flawless complexity) and both artists prove themselves very fine vocalists, achieving stirring harmonies interspersed with excellent solo vocals in turn.WonderlandChrisy’s voice is lovely. Both voices perfectly suit their material and there seems nothing forced about this music that is so powerfully forceful. By the second half they are fully warmed up and it flows naturally and with a passion that thrills, sometimes uplifting, sometimes tragic, but all intensely entertaining.
With a powerful array of Americana, folk and rock, Blackheart are very versatile, live at Center 67I love Blackheart’s Wendy O’Connor’s DeadThe Blackheart set is a powerful array of Americana, folk and rock, demonstrating the versatility of the band along with their broad musical interests. They have strong mojo and perform with folk greats like The Straubs. Their voices serve as the common thread that provides cohesion to this diversity of style. All songs were original bar their magnificent rendition of Led Zepelin’s Rain song. The other songs are from their debut album, Indigo, this includes their ballad Unlike Water which is put to such influential effect in the Moben TV commercial.Unlike Water, a stirring balladMy other favorites included Indigo, Flowers for tomorrow, Somewhere in a dream, Wonderland, and 01204, a very catchy song about the decay of Richard’s hometown, with clever lyrics and saturated with a powerful bathos.
Richard Pilkington of Blackheart, has a great voice and magic fingers, live at Center 67This is clever stuff as well as exceptionally good music. Undoubtedly it derives its power from the real experiences that forged it. There’s no pseudo-passion here.
Chrisy Mostyn of Blackheart live at Center 67Amazingly, Richard and Chrisy had only been performing together for nine months - they are a superbly matched duo and where-ever they play the audience will be touched with grace. With music this intense its no wonder that their voices were strained by the end of the evening! I bought a Morning Has Come CD from Rob, I look forward to the final finished product in due course when it’s rerecorded, and I bought the Blackheart’s indigo album, published by Sugar Tree Records. It’s a superb recording and does full justice to their honey-voiced harmonies and Richard’s magical guitar.For more on Rob HeronFor more on Blackheart