The Vintage Explosion Liquid Room Edinburgh 15th September Review
The Vintage Explosion were at the Liquid Room Edinburgh tonight and, like most dates on this current tour, it was a sold out show.
The first time that I saw this band perform live was back in May this year, and although the band were “electric” on stage, this was in a seated venue and I wanted to see just how they would perform in a club-room venue like this one. As I expected, the band and lead singer William Hitchell were perfect for this venue and their connection with this audience was instant from the moment that they took to the stage and the non-stop musical juke-box that is The Vintage Explosion started.
Musically the band were for the most part covering songs from the early years of rock’n’roll through to the early 1960s, roughly 1955 to 1964 (Pre Beatles) and the ease with which William Hitchell can move vocally from classic rock’n’roll to R&B to soul music (and much more) is amazing.
This was not a long set, roughly one hour plus encore, but a never-ending high energy one with classic songs made famous by iconic artists such as Elvis Presley, Louis Prima, Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, The Platters, Louis Prima, and many more. This audience was loving every minute of this show and no matter what age group they were in, everyone knew the words to so many songs to create a sing-a-long party atmosphere this evening.
The Vintage Explosion don’t only play the big hits that everyone knows, there are a few surprises in this set list too, and with the band having their debut studio album “Havin’ Such A Good Time” just released, some songs in this set list came from here, including “Rockin’ Chair” and “Lay In Your Arms”.
There are many things that make The Vintage Explosion such a good band to see live, William Hitchell’s vocals being perhaps the most obvious one, but there is far more to this band than this, somehow they capture that energy, that excitement, almost electricity of these great songs, and for any of their shows you can for a little while imagine just what hearing this music first time around must have felt like to the original rock’n’roll generation of teenagers. Somehow, even after all of this time, these songs have survived time itself, but it always needs a special band like The Vintage Explosion to really bring them alive again.
If you have not yet seen this band live, try and catch up with one of their shows as although the band are all across the internet at the moment, that audio quality is for the most part limited and nothing really prepares you for the power of the dynamic range of William Hitchell’s vocals. No matter what the song, or the style, he gets it right ever time, but his performances of “Unchained Melody” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” can send that tingling feeling down your spine when you hear them. This is a voice almost calling you from out of time and I thought that Scotland had stopped producing great soul voices like this.
For William Hitchell to give the performances that he does though requires him to know that he has a great band behind him, and he does. The Vintage Explosion has a solid rhythm section that is so essential to these songs and they kept perfect time all through this show, never wavering in that classic beat when the song required it. Add into this good keyboards and a strong horn section and it is obvious that whatever the line-up (it does change on stage) of this band, they can play anything that they want to do and make it sound like their own. Making a lot of this possible were some very good musical arrangements of these classic songs.
Where next for The Vintage Explosion? Well judging from their hectic touring schedule the answer to that question seems to be only in an upward direction as their fan base increases with every show. One day though it would be great to see this band performing in a large dance hall or doing a classic soul songs tour as William Hitchell’s vocals are just made for both.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
The first time that I saw this band perform live was back in May this year, and although the band were “electric” on stage, this was in a seated venue and I wanted to see just how they would perform in a club-room venue like this one. As I expected, the band and lead singer William Hitchell were perfect for this venue and their connection with this audience was instant from the moment that they took to the stage and the non-stop musical juke-box that is The Vintage Explosion started.
Musically the band were for the most part covering songs from the early years of rock’n’roll through to the early 1960s, roughly 1955 to 1964 (Pre Beatles) and the ease with which William Hitchell can move vocally from classic rock’n’roll to R&B to soul music (and much more) is amazing.
This was not a long set, roughly one hour plus encore, but a never-ending high energy one with classic songs made famous by iconic artists such as Elvis Presley, Louis Prima, Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, The Platters, Louis Prima, and many more. This audience was loving every minute of this show and no matter what age group they were in, everyone knew the words to so many songs to create a sing-a-long party atmosphere this evening.
The Vintage Explosion don’t only play the big hits that everyone knows, there are a few surprises in this set list too, and with the band having their debut studio album “Havin’ Such A Good Time” just released, some songs in this set list came from here, including “Rockin’ Chair” and “Lay In Your Arms”.
There are many things that make The Vintage Explosion such a good band to see live, William Hitchell’s vocals being perhaps the most obvious one, but there is far more to this band than this, somehow they capture that energy, that excitement, almost electricity of these great songs, and for any of their shows you can for a little while imagine just what hearing this music first time around must have felt like to the original rock’n’roll generation of teenagers. Somehow, even after all of this time, these songs have survived time itself, but it always needs a special band like The Vintage Explosion to really bring them alive again.
If you have not yet seen this band live, try and catch up with one of their shows as although the band are all across the internet at the moment, that audio quality is for the most part limited and nothing really prepares you for the power of the dynamic range of William Hitchell’s vocals. No matter what the song, or the style, he gets it right ever time, but his performances of “Unchained Melody” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” can send that tingling feeling down your spine when you hear them. This is a voice almost calling you from out of time and I thought that Scotland had stopped producing great soul voices like this.
For William Hitchell to give the performances that he does though requires him to know that he has a great band behind him, and he does. The Vintage Explosion has a solid rhythm section that is so essential to these songs and they kept perfect time all through this show, never wavering in that classic beat when the song required it. Add into this good keyboards and a strong horn section and it is obvious that whatever the line-up (it does change on stage) of this band, they can play anything that they want to do and make it sound like their own. Making a lot of this possible were some very good musical arrangements of these classic songs.
Where next for The Vintage Explosion? Well judging from their hectic touring schedule the answer to that question seems to be only in an upward direction as their fan base increases with every show. One day though it would be great to see this band performing in a large dance hall or doing a classic soul songs tour as William Hitchell’s vocals are just made for both.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com