NINE BELOW ZERO | LIVE REVIEW
The Globe, Cardiff, Sat 3 Dec
Back in the late 70s and early 80s, when the mod revival was at its height, Nine Below Zero offered an R&B antidote to the punk-pop of the mainstream. Thirty-odd years later and on tour again to promote their new album – 13 Shades Of Blue, a tribute to the blues – the group are still as authentic. Formed by a bunch of south London lads in the late 70s, the band took their musical cues from the R&B greats of the 60s, with a harder-edged sound more akin to contemporaries Dr Feelgood with a strong dose of The Yardbirds (Strypes fans should take note).
The last time I saw Nine Below Zero was around 1983 at The New Ocean Club on Rover Way in Tremorfa, so it was great all these years later to be pleasantly surprised to find the band as agile and tight as ever. So many bands who revisit the live circuit to give us middle-aged music lovers a bit of a nostalgia trip end up making us all feel sadly older, not younger. No-one wants to see their teen idols looking a little bit more paunchy and a lot less punchy than you remember them.
This is certainly not the case with Nine Below Zero: the difference is they have never stopped playing. In fact, during their somewhat ‘underground’ career as one of the UK’s best loved blues bands they have played with the likes of Eric Clapton and Ray Davies of The Kinks, to name but a few. The original lineup of Dennis Greaves (guitar/vocals), Mark Feltham (harmonica maestro), Mickey ‘Stix’ Burkey (drums) and Ben Willis (bass) has been expanded now to include a horn section, keyboards and vocals from Charlie Austen to give a much fuller sound.
Austen herself is a bit of an enigma. Imagine a blues version of Joss Stone, complete with the bare feet (she must have been freezing). There are not many white women singers that can handle, or are even prepared to take on a song that Aretha Franklin once sang. But Charlie did just that with her version of Don’t Play That Song (You Lied) and totally owned it.
The set was mainly made up of the blues classics featured on the new album – such as Crawling Up A Hill and It’s Your Voodoo Working, plus a version of Rockin Robin for seasonal good measure. Greaves is a great showman and knows how to get a crowd on his side; unsurprisingly, by the end of the set we wanted more. Thankfully, we were also treated to the band’s inimitable, Eleven Plus Eleven, which some of you may remember was performed on cult 80s TV comedy The Young Ones – proving that Nine Below Zero were, and still are, very cool.
words CLAIRE MAHONEY