It’s been nearly a year since Paul Janeway and his broken bones hit the scene. I was introduced to them by Heather Browne @fuelfriends from the excellent I am fuel you are friends blog. After dragging the crew to see them support Jason Isbell in May last year most of them are here again tonight even though we only saw them back in September.
The bones hail from Alabama and bring that old school sixties muscle shoals soul up to date with Mr Janeway possessing a quite remarkable voice that can hit notes so high only dogs can hear and at the same time melts like ice cream with a honey topping. Its Otis, it’s Sam, its Wilson and they’re all covered tonight but most of all its Paul. The band are tight led by Browan Lollar (check out his solo EP) on guitar.
The evening starts with the band running through an instrumental warming up building to the entrance of the main man himself. For those of who have not seen him he looks like a fat Alan Carr but once you hear that voice its clear who has the talent out of the two.
It’s an interesting blend of their debut album and aforementioned covers along with some leftfield choices, ‘Fake, Plastic Trees from Radiohead and ‘Moonage Daydream’ from Bowie.
It’s an accomplished show climaxing in Call Me in the encore. They are now a very polished outfit honing their set over the past year of touring and certainly it’s the best we’ve seen them live. The voice has a deeper more rounded sound and band are both loose and tight if you can be such a thing.
If you like old school soul then you’ll love this band. It’s the end of their tour and they are off to record that difficult second album. Good luck boys.
Keep on rockin y’all