*Ding* ‘Hey man, do you wanna come check out this guy on Friday night?’
Sure, why the heck not. So last Friday, me and my mates attended L. R. Marsh’s gig at the Ship Inn Hotel, Newcastle. And we are so glad we did!
LR. Marsh, or Luke, is an amazingly talented musician. He is a one-man act playing guitar and digital drums with his feet, a singer, songwriter, terribly funny TikToker, and a super nice guy. One of those super annoyingly talented people you just wanna dislike, because of how talented they are, but you can't because of how easy going and effortlessly cool they are.
The gig kicked off at 7.30pm. LR describes his style as bluesy rock, and it's a fairly apt description. His own style is very much the bluesy rock style with his steel guitar and slide work and 70s-looking electric guitar. It's very clear who LR's influences are throughout the show, with a sound very reminiscent of the early blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Creedence Clearwater Revival to more modern artists such as The Black Keys, The White Stripes, and even Kyuss.
Throughout the evening he played a number of his songs such as ‘Inside Out’ from his latest album ‘Inside Outlines’ as well as several covers giving them his own spin, and in this writer's opinion, playing those songs better than the originals. One of the first covers Luke played which took me by surprise was a song called ‘Ain't No Rest For the Wicked’ by Cage the Elephant, an American band that isn't hugely well-known to most people. The song itself was already a bit of a bluesy rock song that somehow LR managed to add a bit more crunchiness to really get you up and moving. The covers didn’t stop there. He played The Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Johnny Cash, nailing it every time.
The guy was just seamlessly mashing covers together like a DJ on guitar to get the crowd revved up. Going from Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild, blending into The Angels – Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again and back into Steppenwolf. It was amazing to watch and be a part of.
Have I mentioned how annoyingly talented LR is? Luke was regularly swapping between his steel guitar and regular electric guitar, until in the last half of the night he pulled out his Cigar box guitar.
I have seen and heard cigar box guitars before, but nothing like this. It was like he had this cigar box guitar permanently set to Stoner or Doom metal. The massively fat riffy fuzzy chords he was ripping through was imitating 70s hard rock/metal such as Black Sabbath (another cover he played) to modern artists such as Sleep, The Sword, Elder, and Earthless, and even a bit of Audioslave. The remaining crowd and staff went nuts for it. It was such a fat heavy unique sound when coupled with LR’s Bluesy vocals.
LR, ever the showman, played on for an extra half an hour and took a few requests from the crowd. My partner jokingly yelled out 'Play Wonderwall!’ only to see the disgust twist on LR's face at that request and reply 'Lol, NO!…’.
LR rounded out the show by straight out ripping into Black Betty by Ram Jam/Spiderbait and had the place jumping. Even the bar staff were getting into it, people who were sitting were no longer sitting, and everyone was rocking out to this singularly quality musician. He followed this up by starting Black Sabbath – Iron Man, blending that into Rage Against The Machine and back again. LR's rendition of ‘Killing In The Name Of’ was, well, absolutely killer.
LR is still touring at the moment and will be continuing to tour throughout QLD until the end of the year. A wise man once said ‘Do yourself a favor,' get out and see this man live, grab his album, get his T-shirt, and give the
man some love because you’ll be missing out if you don't.
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