Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Lights Out By Nine – Live!
Lights Out By Nine
Genre: Live Music
Venue: The Jazz Bar
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Glasgow based band Lights Out By Nine’s origins are firmly rooted in soul music, mixing powerhouse rhythm and blues with just a twist of New Orleans funk. They operate on the premise that fewer words means more time to play tunes, which makes for a foot-tappingly enjoyable hour on a Friday afternoon. The perfect early start to any weekend.
Review
Glasgow based band Lights Out By Nine’s origins are firmly rooted in soul music, mixing powerhouse rhythm and blues with just a twist of New Orleans funk. They’ve now been playing together for more years than they’d like to remember (it’s nudging forty, for all you followers out there) during which time they’ve created a sizeable catalogue of material which formed the bulk of this, their sixth live show at Edinburgh’s iconic Jazz Barr, although they did have enough time to showcase a few songs of the friends and collaborators with whom they have worked over the years.
Today it’s a seven piece ensemble of percussion, keyboard, bass and rhythm guitars, saxophone, trumpet and vocals that treated the packed venue with a set that included such tracks as Take It Or Leave It, Yellow Moon, Spanish Moon (is there a celestial theme emerging here?) and the catchily entitled Who’s Gonna Be Your Hoochy-Coochy Tonight?
There’s an interesting backstory to the track Laughin’ On The Other Side, a tribute to the iconic Robert Leroy Johnson whose combination of singing, guitar skills and song writing has influenced many subsequent practitioners of blues and Delta blues. Apparently Johnson, who played mainly on street corners and in juke joints, did a deal with the Devil. In return for tuning his guitar to help him become a better musician, Johnson had to sell his soul to the Devil, who is still, allegedly, laughin’ on the other side.
Then we had Chapter Twenty-Six written, appropriately enough, to celebrate the band’s twenty sixth birthday. Eleven years later and they’re still singing it. This was the first of a couple of instrumental pieces, giving the singer a much deserved wee break whilst allowing the band to take the brakes off and create a wall of sound, with every instrument having it own moment in the spotlight.
There was some lovely self-deprecating humour in the brief segues between numbers, including the fact that a lot of their music seems to be inspired by visits to out of the way places on dark nights, often involving a hostelry. Make of that what you will but Lights Out By Nine work on the theory that fewer words means more time to play tunes, which makes for a foot-tappingly enjoyable hour on a Friday afternoon, the perfect early start to any weekend. Recommended listening for all fans of soul, funk, rhythm and blues or just good music.
