It’s a quiet night in the beautiful town of Anglet, France, but it won’t be for much longer. Not when Jacksonville, Florida’s finest rock’n’roll trio is about to bring the house down. Not when every song off their debut album Closer to the Sun and the many subsequent EPs seem to be reaching through your headphones to grab your face between their hands and smooch you like it’s a silent comedy. Not when their live show takes your hand gently, smiles and then jumps off a cliff with you.
Tonight’s sold-out show is the culmination of a three-week tour, playing across Spain and France to ever-increasing audiences, drawn in by the promise of old-school rock’n’roll Christian Powers’ voice encapsulates and kept enthralled by the band’s addictive mix of blues grooves and psychedelic transcendence. It’s hard to resist the one-two punch of songs like Don’t Shoot Me Down or Feet Down Low, instant classics you can easily picture a stadium crowd going wild for from the very first note and which the crowded Écuries de Baroja can barely contain.
With a setlist chosen apparently on the spot, the trio plough through soundscapes like surfers on the Tahiti waves, the guitar solos effortlessly gliding, the rhythm held down tightly by bassist Jon Ward and drummer-vocalist Christian Powers. It’s in songs like the psychedelic Push/Pull that the imagery comes into clear view: the long drives, the city rushing by, the coastline ahead, that particularly American feeling for immense landscapes. On a softer blues side, we were treated to the slow dance Waiting For You, which highlighted Christian’s impressive falsetto, before kicking it right back up a notch with a wonderful cover of Sunshine on my Mind by Cream.
A particular treat was hearing their single Shake at full blast – this was my fifth most played song this year (according to Spotify) and for good reason: combining a laid-back lick with a slow build-up on the drums, it explodes into one of my favourite guitar solos I’ve heard this year. Watching Buddy Crump at work on the guitar is a sight: relaxed, not a muscle moving on his face. It’s clear how easy this comes to him, this phenomenal musicality,
The slightly older demographic brought into the room certainly kept the atmosphere more tame, but by no means diminished the energy: this gig was made for dancing, jumping, and going a bit crazy. They end on an unreleased moshpit-maker, a frantic build of rhythm that takes every last ounce of energy left at the end of a 90-minute set, before letting it disintegrate into purposeful chaos. It’s freeing, it’s fun, it’s everything I love in live music: seeing such magic happen an arm’s length away. I can see the look they exchange when a jam is getting particularly cool, Christian counting the silent beats, the bass all-engulfing, clear in the mix. There are no hidden tricks or gimmicks, they wouldn’t even need a light show: it’s so immediately gripping, the talent on full display, it’s obvious what these guys have is special and intense and worth flying to France on a Thursday for. It’s the sort of gig you bring a friend to – specifically a friend who doesn’t believe live music is worth the effort, to show them just how oh so good it can be.
Metal Junkbox got the chance to have a chat with the awesome guys in Fortune Child before this show. You can read and listen more about tour, their writing process and how they started playing together in our Artist Highlight.
Artists: fortune child