Take a look at this review of Sandi’s recent “Merchants and Thieves” tour to be published in Blues Matters magazine:
SANDI THOM @ The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham. 23/04/2010
It is becoming apparent that Sandi Thom has immaculate taste in her fellow musicians, especially in the Blues, when she chose Marcus Bonfanti to open the show. Marcus’ breath-taking deep throated Blues vocal, classic stage persona and electro acoustic guitar set, opened an evening of not only pure talent but adding to message that in a growing generation of the younger set, the Blues has a safe future.
The whole of this gig with Sandi and the rest of the musicians on that stage was stunning. It is difficult to point out one song that was not of merit. A sample then, serves to reflect the rest. A cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s, ‘I Need Your Love’, revealed Sandi’s fine use of vocal timbre and breathe control allied to some fine underscore and development of the vocal theme by Randle on lead guitar and it was a sheer pleasure to hear.
‘This Ol’ World’, in the absence of Joe Bonamassa who played and sang on the CD, Marcus strapped on guitar and stepped up-to-the-mic, to join in the duet. Liverpool Institute of The Performing Arts, should be very proud of its former pupils contribution to music, an exquisite number! ‘I Am A Runaway Train’ with its dramatic variation in tempo, drums sounding like steel meeting steel, percussive bass riffs, Marcus wailing harp, Sandi’s vocal harmonies and profound Blues guitar riffs, shook the Rescue Rooms with more power and passion, than any tram outside the venue door could.
Sandi and harmony vocal singer Lindsay Cleary’s, A Cappella version of the haunting ‘Ghost Town’ stunned the venue into magnetic silence, as they weaved their tale of the pain of love through the imagery of a Wild West town bereft of occupants, with its musical symmetry.
Although on a strict show-timing that night, it is fair to say, there might have been a lynching had an encore not been allowed. In fact, two where allowed because that crowd wasn’t going to move until its musical hunger for more, had been satiated. Absolutely great gig!
Carol Borrington