rock'n'rill

Rock The Boat

On Saturday we played a double header concert at das boot in Würzburg with Lick And A Promise, a great rock’n’roll band in the Stones/Black Crowes/Faces tradition. The Troublemakers presented a new band member in piano and organ player Jan Reinelt and a whole bunch of new songs. It turned into a great gig!

Lick And A Promise opened with a few acoustic numbers. I love a rock band that knows more than one gear. They have some beautiful acoustic tunes, some of the psychedelic Led Zep school and some with a bit of a country influence, obviously those are closer to my heart. And then they have a knack for writing truly great rock songs. Sometimes it seems like writing a kickass rock’n’roll song is a lost art. These days most songs in that vein have a certain rock factor (big drums, big riffs) but lack the roll part of the equation, the swing, the tongue in cheek, the finger-snapping groove. Lick And A Promise have certainly got it all.
They have a singer with charisma, a great guitarist who plays licks with flair (and looks, I must admit, just how you want a rock guitarist to look), a drummer with drive & subtlety and a bass player with great harmony vocals and arrangement skills. They’re often joined but Andi Kümmert, a talented songwriter/guitarist with a great voice, and a horn section. The horns weren’t there on Saturday but the songs and the band were in shipshape.
I sat in with them on Hard To Handle, the Otis Redding number.

Knowing that Lick would bring a bunch of fans, the Troublemakers also played a pretty rocking set that saw a few debuts.
Pianist Jan Reinelt played his first gig with us. I’ve known Jan for a while, he has often mentioned that he likes my stuff and would be willing to sit in should the occasion arise. He recently said this again and this time the timing was perfect. (My longtime partner Andi Obieglo is far away in Berlin these days and very busy with his band Carolin.No.)
We spent three hours on Saturday afternoon running through the songs with Jan (we’d only had a private two-guy rehearsal before) and he rounded them out and made them sound fabulous. We also debuted a whole bunch of new songs.

Free To Fly - a driving, bluegrassy/country rocker
When The Night Calls - a soul-inspired number
In My Bones - a poignant ballad to which Jan added a beautiful piano melody
Never Come To Know - a midtempo burner that picks up momentum along the way
Edge Of Nothin’ - it’s got a cool, stomping groove and some fiery guitar

They all went well, we felt good on stage and had fun playing with Jan.

And as a rousing encore, Jochen and Manuel of Lick joined us for a cool take on the Stones’ classic You Can’t Always Get What You Want (perceiced by many as the evening’s highlight) and Chuck Berry’s Nadine.