Kevin Borich @ The GC at the German Club, Adelaide 17/3/2017
“Great start from the support guy… but I’ve no idea who he is!!!” was my initial thought, until a quick dash to the merch table following his brief set remedied that, as boy could he play. The “support guy“, was in fact Gwyn Ashton and his slide guitar work was incomparable. Unassumingly he sat down and had the crowd in awe within moments, with some of the greatest slide work I’ve ever seen. He riffed a few bluesey tracks, including the title track to his Prohibition album, before leaving us far too soon to make way for the headliner of the evening… and with that, we went from great to great, as Kevin Borich took to the stage to belt out his own brand of funk and rock fuelled blues.
Borich’s career spans well over 4 decades and he showed us all why, every inch the rock star as he made his guitar all but talk on the opening track and worked his way through a blistering set with his world class band, comprised of Chris Gilbert on bass and Jon Carson on drums.
I wasn’t overly familiar with much of Borich’s material prior to the show, with the exception of the classic Gonna See My Baby Tonight, of which Borich and his band did a ripping rendition. However, there were plenty of other highlights throughout the show, even for the uninitiated, including the extremely funky Angel’s Hand, which also highlighted Jon & Chris’ incredible skills, as they took turns trading funky bass lines and drum fills, as well as the very powerful Fight On, influenced by his battle with cancer, a riff fuelled, monster of a track and the rocking Good To See You Again. A great show to kick off the last weekend of this year’s Fringe and highly recommended if you get a chance to catch this guitar legend live.
Review by Peter Lanyon