Vandenburg's Moonkings Camden Underworld 17-2-18

First up with a 30 minute acoustic set was Gypsy Heart who amongst some originals covered Open My Eyes by Rival Sons and Heather Leoni impressed with a fantastic range and melodic tone.Look forward to hearing some more of her.

Next up was Switchblade City who after Heather's impressive pipes was a bit of a let down with the sound being very poor and with a set that if I'm honest I could have walked into any song and thought it was the same one!!

Nearly 4 years after their previous London visit and in support of the excellent second album 2 Adrian Vandenburg brought his Moonking's back to the capital.

Mixing tracks from the debut with 4 from the new cd including the wonderful Angel In Black this is what they played.

Quite comically at the end of the set they removed the set list and replaced it with  this one for the encores.

 But more of that later.

There are 2 sides to the Moonking's.Up front is Adrian looking fantastic and playing beautifully with superb melodic soloing and along side him is the snake hipped Jan Hoving on vocals.They obviously enjoy each other's company and have a wonderful chemistry with lots of smiles and Jan's vocal's are superb through out with a melodic bluesy tone.

The rhythm team of Mart Nijen-Es (drums) and Sem Christoffel (bass) are simply sensational.Adrian says they are the best he has ever played with and for such a youthful pair their interplay is telepathic.Both get solo spots with Sem's being part of an outro and both show jaw dropping talent 

Tightrope the first single of the new album started the set in style and thankfully the sound was so much better.
Mid set was a highlight with Adrian's hit single from the mid 80's Burning Heart being rapturously received  before 2 stool's were brought out for an acoustic take on the classic Whitesnake track Sailing Ships.Jan's vocal's were superb and a dead ringer for Mr Coverdale and from the smiles on stage they enjoyed it as much as we did.

If anyone had seen the event poster( see above) it says with guest vocal's from Nathan James of Inglorious.I'm all for guest's turning up but this is the first time I can remember where it's been on poster and with Nathan around from the beginning of the evening for him to come on for just Here I Go Again the Whitesnake classic was a bit weird.He did an amazing job with his stratospheric vocal range but to then get him off again before they ended the evening with Led Zep's Rock N'Roll I question it!!

A good evening.