Ever had a moment when you hear something on the radio and instantly love it? Well that happened to me with tonight’s headliners. Canadians The Damn Truth recently released a song called ‘This Is Who We Are Now’ (taken from their latest Bob-Rock-produced album “Now Or Nowhere”) and the instant I heard it I was hooked. So when I heard they were coming to Chester, despite not really knowing anything else about them, I had to go along.

Tonight’s support band are called Scarlet. I haven't heard of them before, but a quick google tells me they come from our patch (Northwest England, St Helens to be precise) and frontwoman Jessie confides during the set that she went to Chester Uni so I suppose that definitely qualifies them as a local band for local people! They play a kind of detuned, indie jangly pop/rock. I find them inoffensive and in my head I am calling them a student band – in the sense that I think they will appeal to students, not that they need to study harder. She has a decent enough voice with a good range and she's in tune but she's lacking a little bit of power and doesn't really interact with the audience. The songs were Ok too, but there was no standout track and I didn’t see anything special. They remind me a bit of Garbage. They do get reasonably bouncing and danceable in places and stray into punk pop territory – shades of Paramore or Avril Lavigne pop up every now and again which is a good thing. There was enough going on to get me nodding along in places and while not setting the world on fire they were certainly worth a watch. 

A little homework tells me that The Damn Truth come from Montreal, and have been around for about 9 years now. They come on stage to Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ and as Grace Slick’s vocals echo around the room and I watch the band caper along waving incense like demented pixie hippies I wonder just exactly what I have let myself in for? Well for a start they begin the set with the song I mentioned above that piqued my interest in them. It’s a gritty, sleazy blues rock song, it’s incredibly catchy, there's immense power in vocalist Lee-la’s voice and it's all very upbeat. The Jefferson Airplane start was pertinent because her vocals very much remind me of Grace during this song and throughout the set, although she has also been described elsewhere as the natural successor to Janis Joplin’s blues soul crown and I can’t disagree with that either. The set is very Americana, even though they are Canadians. There’s definitely a 70s hippie vibe in their look, their music and their message. There are even shades of Led Zeppelin and Free creeping in there. It's like Woodstock revisited, the songs are bluesy (not usually my favourite thing but done so well that I forgive them) and have complicated time changes and occasional wandering freeform bridges. The main selling point though is Lee-la’s voice. She has real power and range, her tone is crystal clear and it’s just remarkable how good she is. In places their sound is raw and unproduced, the guitar is a little fuzzy sometimes, but every now and again when she sings acapella by herself or just with the band doing harmonies or does that scream, I get goosebumps. The Janis is definitely strong in this one! There are songs that we can clap and sing along to and just occasionally they touch on more of a 70s glam rock vibe and sound a little like Suzi Quattro. Variety is, after all, the spice of life! There's a bit of a drum solo which is well-played then just when I think I've seen all of Lee-la’s vocal prowess she pulls out some more notes, some more screams and I stand with my mouth open. The guitarist Tom goes walkabout in the crowd for a bit, the bass player mixes things up by playing with his guitar on his head, it all goes a bit psychedelic and I am wondering if someone slipped some kind of mushroom into my bottle of water?

This is the kind of music that scoops you up and swirls you around, you sway and foot-tap along because the music is in you as well as all over the stage and all over the room. Not all of the music is to my taste but her voice and the guitar sound makes up for it and I forgive the bits that leave me a little cold because the warm bits are like woolly hugs. The emotion in those vocals is off the scale but just as it’s all getting a bit much they go back to being happy and fun and everything is OK again. For the encore, even though apparently they don’t normally do covers they throw out a haunting version of Jack White’s ‘Love Is Blindness’ and again the comparison to Grace Slick or even Heart is undeniable. The final song is a rambly jazzy jam-like thing that starts and stops and flows and doesn’t and is all over the place but somehow also totally together (man) and they also make use of the mirrorball for added effect. There’s a little rap about love, peace, rock n roll and freedom, a crescendo of noise and energy to finish with and it’s all over. We are left sated but also hungry for more, I’m off to buy the album without further delay!

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!