Gig review: Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton + Blues Arcadia at the Metro, Sydney

Live review: Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton with Blues Arcadia at the Metro Theatre, Sydney, Sunday, May 16 2024

By PAUL SOUTHWELL

SAMANTHA Fish is a Grammy nominated guitarist and formidable singer-songwriter. Whilst her musical style is largely blues-based, her music delves into other genres, including rock, rhythm and blues, Americana, and to some extent, pop. Her teaming up with Texan guitarist, producer and actor, Jesse Dayton was initially explored with an excellent EP of covers, The Stardust Sessions. Given the clear musical chemistry, they embarked on a full album, bringing to fruition the Billboard Blues Chart-topping Death Wish Blues, produced by the focused and energetic Jon Spencer. The album is chock full of attitude and character, steeped in that North Mississippi vibe, and has resulted in a global tour. Returning as a duo, their recent tour to Australia was a masterclass in musical collaboration performance and was backed up perfectly by Brisbane’s cool soul and blues inspired Blues Arcadia.

Starting things off, Blues Arcadia’s five piece used “Tell Me Why” as a slow build up that saw vocalist Alan Boyle waiting to begin as Stevie Ray Vaughan-channelling guitarist, Harvey Blues, set the mood with a weaving, slow blues run. The rhythm section of bassist Jeremy Klysz and drummer Casper Hall added groove and accents, fleshed out by tasteful jazz chords from keyboardist Paula Girvan. The brooding track was partially reminiscent of Vaughan’s “Tin Pin Alley”, with judicious soloing that was emotive but not overpowering.

Continuing with the up-tempo funk shuffle of “Dollar Bill” and the comparatively pop stylings of “Broadway Chapel” from their Now or Never album showed the band’s use of musical phrasing and quality of arrangements. An attempt at call and response for the chorus of the pop single “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now” was slightly ambitious but things picked up again during the spicy boogie of “Operator Please” that used turnarounds and musical resolves to great effect.

“Corner Girls” was certainly a set highlight, as the darker blues lament mixed with jazzy chord, whilst melodic vocals over changes ushered in guitar soloing with biting tone, vibrato, and accents, with deft use of passing notes, and emotive playing. Some Hammond organ sounds filled out the rhythm section driven groove of “Get Yourself Together”, followed by a well-executed rendition of Portishead’s haunting “Glory Box”, with suitable keyboard sounds similar to Zeppelin’s “No Quarter”.

To wrap up their set, the energetic, jumping, Texas blues of “Seven Days a Week” had plentiful uses of choruses, with the final track of “Bad Boogaloo” whipping past at a breakneck pace. Blues Arcadia were well rehearsed and tight this evening, making for a fantastic opening band to welcome Samantha Fish, Jesse Dayton and band to the stage for the first night of their tour.

Soon enough, on came the Death Wish Blues live band, consisting of drummer Jamie Douglass, bassist Ron Johnson [from Warren Haynes, plus the late Gregg Allman], and keyboardist Mickey Finn. Fish, with her main Gibson SG white guitar and Dayton, with his black double cutaway, semi-hollow body guitar, followed.

Launching into a rollicking cover of “Kick Out the Jams”, the band were synchronised right out of the gate, the gritty, bluesy riff-based feel bolstered Fish’s strong vocal projection, without drowning out elements of falsetto. Her throaty power matched by guitar soloing that was fluid, squealing with pentatonic scale-based figures, embellished by blues-based passing notes. Alongside the keyboard swells, and powering bass, the rhythm section complemented the raw attitude. It was followed but the bouncing groove of “Deathwish”, with Dayton’s soloing adding some biting, stinging guitar tone with a distinct country blues flavour, adding variance and edge to the catchy, poppier vocal line.

“Feelin’ Good” provided some more raw guitar sounds, with minimal processing, and one of many guitar changes this evening for Fish, who delved into the raspy vocal vibe. The slow soul-based groove of “Hello Stranger” offered a more real rhythm and blues feel alongside a sweeter vocal delivery from Fish, with her soulful timbre matching the keyboards higher register note choices during the song.

One of the set highlights was heard with “Bulletproof” from Kill Or Be Kind, as Fish brought out her four-string cigar box guitar, peeling off slide guitar lines that would make many a blues hound jealous with envy at the feel, attitude and overall ability to coax out climactic notes at the exact points in the song. Slide guitar is often attempted but rarely done authentically, and Fish has those chops down pat.

A unison start to “Down in the Mud” provided a vocal driven rhythm feel, with plentiful guitar soloing juxtaposed with some funky chord choices from Fish and Dayton. Dual guitar lines then led to some slower sections for Fish to solo, before reprising the chorus. Musical talent is not Fish’s only skill as an enthused punter got short shrift for their heckling. The audiences laughed and from this point on, Fish, Dayton and band owned the stage for the rest of the night. 

A soulful ballad was soon delivered with the arpeggiated gracefulness of “No Apology”, that morphed into a half time outro figure, allowing for a more powerful blues turnaround end, with plenty of cymbal work from Douglass. The shuffling, riff-based “Trauma”, led by Dayton on vocals, was interesting in how the dual vocals with Fish took on the melody lines at different frequencies. 

The use of acoustic guitars added to the poetic flavour of “I’ll Be Here in the Morning” was fantastic, offering up an almost pedal steel feel on acoustic guitars, combining cascading notes, strums, and bright fills popping out of the live mix. Some rolling solo guitar playing from Dayton took it into country music style fingerpicking, as lead vocals were traded, alternating with backing vocals with precision.

Dayton’s own material got a look in with “Baby’s Long Gone” from his recent album, The Hard Way Blues. Drayton’s soloing had bounce and tasteful feel, with the riff moving between parts effortlessly. If that was deep east pinewoods Texas country blues, then we need to hear more of it. Death Wish Blues track “Rippin’ and Runnin'” had Fish on lead vocals, with plentiful slide guitar and bass power, as the audience clapped along to the big bad blues. It segued into “Supadupabad”, complete with funk guitar interplay, and trade off call and response guitars over a military drum figure, with Dayton taking vocal duties, and with some octave effects on the guitar. 

Another set highlight was a cover of “I Put a Spell on You”. Fish delivered pitch, emotion, and precision. Guitar lines had climbing intervals, tasty chord hits and slow notes bending into pitch, with that biting blues where one can hear strings rubbing against frets, letting phrases ring out, as the into heavier feel of solo saw some more aggressive guitar styles surface. It was swiftly followed with a cover of “7 and 7 Is” by Arthur Lee, which was almost punk in brevity and speed, which melded into an instrumental surf guitar-based interlude, indicating the rich depth of musical styles at the disposal of the ever-talented Fish and band.

The swaggering blues of “Riders” closed set the main set. The track included open string blues, descending guitar runs and then climbing guitar lines the fed back to the riff, as lead vocals were traded. The encore was similarly fiery but not before the subtlety of “You Know My Heart” let Fish and Dayton trade more lead vocals, and a variety of guitar styles, and other song references, in their lead guitar parts. 

Closing off the superb night of entertainment, Dayton and Fish took to a cover of R.L. Burnside’s “Goin’ Down South” in unique fashion, throwing in Sgt. Splendor’s dark twist on the track, which included the lyrics of ‘I’d rather be dead, and six feet in the ground.’ Therein lies the beauty of the blues and interpreting songs; artists can take song’s story and use the freedom of blues expression to meld it, and to shift emphasis, as long as the overall feel is retained. In doing so, they took the largely chorus-based aspects with some lyrical poetic license and peppered it with suitable guitar lines. Simply brilliant work from Fish, Dayton and band, delivering possibly one of the best club shows of the year.