When Rivers Meet gig review with support from Troy Redfern – The Bodega Nottingham.

May 28, 2022 rocknews

Well we are back in the at The Bodega for the second time this week, this time we are here for a night of blues rock from When Rivers Meet and Troy Redfern. With 2 award winning albums (Saving Grace & We Fly Free) being released over lockdown ‘When Rivers Meet’ are here in Nottingham for a sell out gig on their current ‘The Flying Free Tour’

First up it’s the hardest working man in the business Troy Redfern, if you have been to a gig in the last 12 months and haven’t seen Troy, you are in the minority. Troy is the master of the slide guitar, he has a beat-up old guitars that he makes sing. Troy is just an incredible guitarist, which you have to see.

Next we have our headliners When Rivers Meet, husband and wife duo Grace and Aaron Bond who through their music and their online presence have built a substantial 100,000 followers on Facebook. Tonight Grace and Aaron are joined on stage by Roger Inniss playing bass and drummer James Fox. They kick off which is probably their best know song, after getting a lot of radio airplay, ‘Did I Break The Law’. With amazing vocals from Grace and Aarons rhythmic guitar hook they really got the crowds attention.

Next up was ‘Walking On A Wire’ where Grace played along with her tiny guitar. The set carried on with songs from their 2 albums and Eps and included ‘Battle Ground’, innocence Of youth’, Bury My Body’, and Free man’. ‘Tomorrow’ slowed the pace of the show and allowed Grace & Aaron to really show the chemistry they have on stage. Grace seemed overwhelmed at points when everyone sang along to their songs.

Grace explained why they had a song by Thunder as their intro track, she recalled meeting Aaron when she was a barmaid in a local pub where he introduced her to the band.

One of the many highlights was Rogers bass solo which became a drum and bass solo when James came in. Aaron mentioned how they had won the blues award and had beat off competition from Iron Maiden to get the Planet Rock album of the year.

At one point Grace went into the crowd and interacted with the fans. Aaron and Grace are genuinely some of the nicest people you will ever meet, you feel privileged to get to spend time with them. The regular set ended with ‘Want Your Love’ from the ‘Innocence of Youth’ EP.

For the encore, the band played a further 2 more songs from their latest album ‘Saving Grace’. ‘Never coming home’ is an easy song for the fans to participate along to. WRM then closed the show with ‘Testify’ undoubtedly one of the band’s rockier songs which gave the fans a real buzz to finish on.

It’s been a great night of music from toe tapping ballads to full-on head banging rock tunes all built on a foundation of solid sounding blues. I get a feeling that the next time I see WRM in Nottingham they will be playing one of the larger venues the city has to offer and rightly so!!

WHEN RIVERS MEET’S SET LIST

1.            DID I BREAK THE LAW
2.            WALKING ON THE WIRE
3.            MY BABE
4.            BATTLEGROUND
5.            DON’T TELL ME GOODBYE
6.            FREE MAN
7.            LOST & FOUND
8.            INNOCENCE OF YOUTH
9.            BURY MY BODY
10.         TOMORROW
11.         FRIEND OF MINE
12.         WE FLY FREE
13.         HE’LL DRIVE YOU CRAZY
14.         I CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING
15.         KISSING THE SKY
16.         WANT YOUR LOVE

Encore

17. NEVER COMING HOME
18. TESTIFY

WHEN RIVERS MEET – LINE-UP

Grace Bond – Lead vocals, mandolin, violin
Aaron Bond – Guitar, vocals
Roger Inniss- Bass Guitar
James Foxy Fox, – Drums, Keyboards