Robert Penn

Last night I went to see a guy called Robert Penn at the ShakeDown Blues event out in Castor Village Hall. I was expecting a good evening, but this guy was just something else. It's hard to describe just how awesomely good he was.

The event started a little late at 8:15 and he started the first of three sets. I'm far from a blues connoisseur so I can't really comment on the technical side of things, but this was fairly standard blues fare (insofar as anything this evening could be referred to as 'standard'). The second set had a lot of Motown stuff in (some of which I recognised...) and ended with a rendition of Shaft. The third set was just incredible, even if I can't remember any of the actual songs within it.

I'm not really sure how else to describe the evening as I don't really have any other live (or, really, otherwise) blues experiences to compare it to, but I'm assured that this guy was something special (not that I needed much assurance). He spent a lot of the evening conducting the 6-piece band behind him and it just sounded incredible.

If anyone has the chance to see him, I would heartily recommend it and, for those of you remaining in Peterborough, I'd take a look at the other ShakeDown Blues events happening (the next one is on the weekend of the 21st of October).