Stephen Dale Petit / David Sinclair Trio

It's difficult to imagine that tonight's event is going to be a particularly chaotic affair. With the majority of the snappily-dressed audience sitting decidedly closer to the bar than to the stage by the time support act David Sinclair Trio kicks into gear, the casual atmosphere of the evening is almost stifling. This perhaps isn't helped by the fact that the band themselves are more middle of the road than your Grandpa shopping in Sainsbury's on a Wednesday afternoon, although in its own curious way, this almost makes them the ideal warm-up for the blues explosion that is due to arrive on stage soon after.

The 100 club is far closer to capacity once Stephen Dale Petit and his backing band launch into what is essentially one huge bluesy jamming session, and there can be little doubt that the crowd's interest in the action onstage has increased tenfold. Heads are nodding, arms are waving, and instruments are being thumped, blown and strum into oblivion as the ambience picks up further and further with each passing song – a fact certainly not lost on the charismatic Petit. This is, after all, a man who has himself on many occasions effectively singled himself out as the saviour of the Blues, so if the guy can't get his own audience moving, what chance has he got?

Of course, such an outrageous claim of heroism can usually only be made by one of two people; a musician whose love of his genre of choice is so deep that he'll go to any length to see it survive, or an arrogant nut job. It almost certainly isn't an insult to Petit to suggest that he somehow manages to blur the extremely thin line between the two, and he even does that with style, as whilst much of the improvised musicianship on display is a tad self-indulgent at times, it is never less than invigorating all the same. At the end of the day, when the Blues is played at such a honest, back-to-basics level, it's almost impossible not to be.

Petit's soulful romp through his set is one that nods to influences from Clapton to King to Randy Rhoads, and the result is an overwhelming diversity of styles that all hark back to the same bluesy core. Few in attendance tonight will hear anything new or particularly ground-breaking, but that can hardly dent the unstoppably addictive momentum that Petit soon builds, and by the time the final note of this loud and somewhat sophisticated night is left ringing through Oxford Street, the man himself can surely depart satisfied knowing that he has left an audience well and truly rocked, and the Blues most certainly saved, for now at least.

FUTURE GIGS

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