Just what I needed! A real blue-collar Aussie Rock/Blues guitarist in a small club with a strongly appreciative crowd – sometimes you just need some RAAWWK!Rob Tognoni is no stranger to the UK but I have managed to miss him every time he has been around so far but at last I managed to be in the right place and got an earful of superb hard rock and Blues with a tad more subtlety than I expected.
Classic 3 piece with Rob on guitar, accompanied by just bass and drums and right from the start they were belting out some classic ‘legs astride and head back rock ‘n’ roll’. The solos were coming thick and fast and the band mixed up the tempo plenty so that the groove never got staid but the focus was always on Mr Tognoni and he made very few mistakes (even when he did it was laughed off as what you get when it is really live).
Musically he is mainly a hard rock guitarist but he has a Blues heart and he does a stunning version of ‘Red House’ alongside his own ‘Dark Angel’ and it was great to hear him play Neil Young’s ‘Hey Hey Out Of The Blue’ from the ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ album. Less welcome though was his version of ‘Hey Joe’ – I simply don’t understand why people keep on copying the Hendrix version; Hendrix did that version perfectly, if you want to play the song do something different with it!
That gripe apart a cracking evening and the crowd got two sets and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The Attic is a really fine little venue, excellent sound system, very intimate with the seating around the walls and in the centre and good sightlines from everywhere: a cracking design.
