Written By: Tony Davis
Photos By: WEB Photo UK Photography
On what is now the last night of a nationwide tour, due to Wolverhampton having been cancelled, Matt Pearce and The Mutiny and Jack J Hutchinson provide an evening of stunning soul, blues and rock music. This double shot is really an evening of two parts. The smooth, rather soulful bluesy sound of Matt and his band and the more upfront in your face rocky sound of Jack and his band.
They have been rotating which band plays first on this tour, but first up tonight is Matt Pearce and The Mutiny. I have to confess that I had only heard a few tracks by Matt prior to the gig but was completely drawn in by the soulful blues that the 6 person unit delivered. Most of the set was based around Matt’s 2022 album The Soul Food Store with tracks like Ordinary Blues and Scarecrowing, linked with Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well, thrown in for good measure, together with a cover of the classic soul song Drift Away. This is a band packed with great musicians who were able to show that to great effect during a set, which to my mind, passed too quickly.
Next up was Jack J Hutchinson. I was a bit more familiar with Jack’s work and prepared for the change of pace that came along. It was clear from the opener Don’t Let the ******* Get You Down, that this set was going to be more rocky and so it proved. Unsurprisingly the majority of the set list was drawn from Jack’s most recent album Battles. The trio romped through 13 tracks in total with Jack quickly establishing a conversation and rapport with the audience. Stand out tracks for me were Road To Hell and a ballad that Jack wrote for his father called I Will Follow You. In addition to the songs from Battles Jack threw in some back catalogue stuff including Call of the Wild from The Hammer Falls, one of the first songs he ever wrote, called Deal With The Devil, and even a cover of Paul Weller’s Out Of The Sinking. All in all this was a well balanced and thoroughly enjoyable set.
Matt Pearce and the Mutiny Full Set List:
Got A Thing Going On
Never Get Away From Love
All The Gods
Promised Land
Bring It All To Me
Ordinary Blues
From Here To The Moon
A Better Way
King Of The World
Drift Away
Scarecrowing/Oh Well
Jack J Hutchinson Full Set List:
Don’t Let The ******* Get You Down
Constellations
Days Are Gone
Running On Empty
Road To Hell
Love Is The Law
Out Of The Sinking
Hip Slickin
I Will Follow You
Overdrive
Call Of The Wild
Bullets