There may have been a long wait for it, but the second night of the Big Wheel Blues festival finally came round on Saturday evening.

Thankfully, the blues fans of the island are a patient lot, and were content to hang on for the tantalizing double bill of brilliant UK blues talent.

The organisers decided to break up the running order of the two-day blues festival and, instead of the traditional consecutive line-up of bands held at the start of May, the organisers decided to hold one day in May and one at the start of September .

Only time will tell if such a move would prove to be popular with the festival goers, but on the evidence of two respectable-sized crowds on both nights, it seems to have worked well.

Following on from the May line up, which featured Mike Vernon and the Mighty Combo, this line-up showed two more sides of the British blues scene.

On one hand, you had one of the best and most hotly-tipped stars in Lauren Housley, dripping in raw talent and with a voice powerful enough to shake the windows in the frames, and on the other hand you had an almost veteran-like figure, of the blues scene, an absolute master of his craft in harmonica player and singer Steve ’West’ Weston.

Weston and his band, the Bluesonics, were introduced by one of the festival organisers, John Barker, who described them as ’possibly the greatest blues band playing in the Britain today.’

You would be hard put to argue with such a description on their performance here, with a terrific set of old blues standards and original songs, topped with the harsh throaty growl of West’s overdriven harmonica.

He was backed by a slick band, featuring smooth guitar playing from Paul Garner, Orlando Shearer on double bass and some very stylish, jazz infused drums from Mike Thorn.

Lauren Housley went on beforehand, and very nearly took the roof off the centre with her powerful, gorgeous voice.

She performed a fine set of country and rock-infused blues, featuring songs mainly taken from her debut album ’The Beauty Of This Life’, with one or two covers of some countrified standards along the way.

Her gentle version of ’Jolene’ was a pleasure to listen to, as was the well deserved encore, ’The Weight’, with the crowd joining in with the well-known chorus.

She too was backed by a fabulous backing band, and in particular the stellar talents of guitarist Thomas Gibb, who could almost be forgiven for wearing sunglasses in such a dark room for his stunning, soulful guitar work.

The evening began with the house band, the Big Wheel Blues band, featuring organisers Pete Christian, Dickie Best and John Barker, and a fine guest appearance by a fez-wearing Marc Tyley.

The afternoon also saw a range of free acts at the Institute, including Walter Ego, Han FX and Jor-DMC, Chris Maybury and Blue Vannin.

by Mike Wade

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