One of the ads for this gig noted Southern Lightning delivered ‘loud, dirty, laidback blues’ . . . I’ve heard them on CD but not live until yesterday. That seemed a very apt description . . . I could hear them as I got off the tram. In the first break when I told 3 of the 4 band members when I could first hear them they cracked up. They’d just been asked officially to drop the volume a little . . .

Manny Seddon, Craig & Dave. Pete is obscured.

It was great to see Dave take the full vocal load. Mostly I’ve seen him work with Steve Lucas in the Steve Lucas bands, where Dave is only one of the vocalists. But with Southern Lightning the singing of their ‘dirty laidback blues’ was all up to him. And it was excellent.

The audience included Jerome Smith & Christian Foyle from Steve’s band. And Pete Mavric who plays bass for Steve when Jerome isn’t available was playing in this band. Other musicians, locals & lots of music fans were there; cheering, applauding loudly & thoroughly enjoying Southern Lightning’s music.