The Vintage Explosion Queen's Hall Edinburgh 20th May 2023 Review
The Vintage Explosion played the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight and this 900 capacity venue was sold out, and the reason for that became obvious within a few moments of the band taking to the stage and lead singer/frontman William Hitchell asking the audience if they wanted to hear some Rock’n’Roll.
I have to admit now in this review that although the band’s promotion refers to them as the Tik Tok sensation, I have never visited that social media space, so that praise just passed me by completely. When however Rod Stewart, one of the great soul/R&B voices of his generation, praises the band, and William Hitchell’s vocals in particular, you know there is something special going on with this band.
I review over any one year a lot of music and a lot of musical theatre, but just once in a while there is a very special performer, a very special vocal talent that you hear for the first time and just think to yourself “I did not expect that”. Within a few seconds of William Hitchell starting to sing the Little Richard classic “Keep A Knockin’” it was obvious that a very unique and a very special talent was on stage, and he knew exactly what to do to please this audience from that moment on.
The Vintage Explosion are a Glasgow-based band that William Hitchell originally created to target the corporate entertainment market and whilst that audience is obviously still there, it is clear that this band have attracted a far wider audience of people from many different age groups.
Musically the band tonight were covering songs mostly from the early years of Rock’n’Roll through to the early 1960s, roughly 1955 to 1964 (Pre Beatles) when everything changed once more, and they were not stopping for breath as classic songs followed one after the other. No need for introductions to so many of these songs either, as they have over the decades become interwoven into our cultural history.
So many songs to choose from tonight, some obvious ones that you would expect to be here – Jailhouse Rock (Elvis), Lucille (Little Richard), See You Later, Alligator (originally recorded by Bobby Charles) to name just a few, and William Hitchell has the power in his voice to deliver them all as they should be sung, somehow capturing along the way that pure energy that many of these original performers brought to the stage with their up until then unheard of sounds. With Vintage Explosion and William Hitchell’s vocals and performance it was possible to get a feeling, even some 60/70 years later of what hearing some of these songs for the first time must have felt like.
Rock’n’Roll vocal belters are not the only songs that William Hitchell can sing, Rod Stewart was right, here is an exceptional soul voice, and his cover of the Sam Cooke classic “A Change Is Gonna Come” was for me one of the evening’s highlights.
William Hitchell is not just a singer though, he is an entertainer who seems to instinctively know what his audience want from him on stage and his performance of the Louis Prima classic “I’m Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” was a big crowd pleaser.
The Vintage Explosion is of course not just one person, and this is a very tight band that work together so well to authentically recreate sounds of this period. Nice to see Konrad Wiszniewski, one of my favourite saxophone players, taking a step from the world of Jazz into Rock’n’Roll this evening and obviously having so much fun with the music along the way.
This was simply a show full of great songs and apparently never ending energy, but I suspect we have only started to skim along the surface of just what this band and William Hitchell’s vocals are capable of and that there is so much more to come in the future.
If you missed this chance to see The Vintage Explosion live, the band is back in Edinburgh at The Liquid Room on 15th September.
Opening the show for The Vintage Explosion this evening an interesting four piece band, Baby Face & the Beltin' Boys who set the scene for what was to come later with their own take on that vintage Rock’n’Roll/Rockabilly and reminding me at times of Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
I have to admit now in this review that although the band’s promotion refers to them as the Tik Tok sensation, I have never visited that social media space, so that praise just passed me by completely. When however Rod Stewart, one of the great soul/R&B voices of his generation, praises the band, and William Hitchell’s vocals in particular, you know there is something special going on with this band.
I review over any one year a lot of music and a lot of musical theatre, but just once in a while there is a very special performer, a very special vocal talent that you hear for the first time and just think to yourself “I did not expect that”. Within a few seconds of William Hitchell starting to sing the Little Richard classic “Keep A Knockin’” it was obvious that a very unique and a very special talent was on stage, and he knew exactly what to do to please this audience from that moment on.
The Vintage Explosion are a Glasgow-based band that William Hitchell originally created to target the corporate entertainment market and whilst that audience is obviously still there, it is clear that this band have attracted a far wider audience of people from many different age groups.
Musically the band tonight were covering songs mostly from the early years of Rock’n’Roll through to the early 1960s, roughly 1955 to 1964 (Pre Beatles) when everything changed once more, and they were not stopping for breath as classic songs followed one after the other. No need for introductions to so many of these songs either, as they have over the decades become interwoven into our cultural history.
So many songs to choose from tonight, some obvious ones that you would expect to be here – Jailhouse Rock (Elvis), Lucille (Little Richard), See You Later, Alligator (originally recorded by Bobby Charles) to name just a few, and William Hitchell has the power in his voice to deliver them all as they should be sung, somehow capturing along the way that pure energy that many of these original performers brought to the stage with their up until then unheard of sounds. With Vintage Explosion and William Hitchell’s vocals and performance it was possible to get a feeling, even some 60/70 years later of what hearing some of these songs for the first time must have felt like.
Rock’n’Roll vocal belters are not the only songs that William Hitchell can sing, Rod Stewart was right, here is an exceptional soul voice, and his cover of the Sam Cooke classic “A Change Is Gonna Come” was for me one of the evening’s highlights.
William Hitchell is not just a singer though, he is an entertainer who seems to instinctively know what his audience want from him on stage and his performance of the Louis Prima classic “I’m Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” was a big crowd pleaser.
The Vintage Explosion is of course not just one person, and this is a very tight band that work together so well to authentically recreate sounds of this period. Nice to see Konrad Wiszniewski, one of my favourite saxophone players, taking a step from the world of Jazz into Rock’n’Roll this evening and obviously having so much fun with the music along the way.
This was simply a show full of great songs and apparently never ending energy, but I suspect we have only started to skim along the surface of just what this band and William Hitchell’s vocals are capable of and that there is so much more to come in the future.
If you missed this chance to see The Vintage Explosion live, the band is back in Edinburgh at The Liquid Room on 15th September.
Opening the show for The Vintage Explosion this evening an interesting four piece band, Baby Face & the Beltin' Boys who set the scene for what was to come later with their own take on that vintage Rock’n’Roll/Rockabilly and reminding me at times of Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com