Soulful Harmonies and Dirty Riffs: When Rivers Meet Rock North London

May 25, 2024 rocknews

The Garage, just off Highbury Corner in Islington, is a great venue and perfect for a night of blues rock courtesy of Essex husband and wife duo When Rivers Meet. This “Aces Are High” tour has seen them travel the length and breadth of the country and the packed Garage crowd were eager to see them.

Dusk Brothers got us underway with a well received support set before WRM took to the stage to a huge roar from the North London crowd.

Half of the set came from the ‘Aces Are High’ album, released last year to critical acclaim, and that went some way to them being awarded UK Blues Band of The Year for the third successive time.

Opener ‘Infected’ got everyone going, swiftly followed by two more from the latest release, as ‘Seen it all Before’ and ‘Play the Game’ kept the energy up, the former giving Aaron Bond the chance to shine on slide guitar.

Backed by an awesome rhythm section of drums and bass, Aaron and Grace’s songs sound incredible and the crowd absolutely loved them.

As well as 10 songs from ‘Aces Are High’, we also got six from 2020’a ‘We Fly Free’, with ‘Battleground’ and ‘Kissing the Sky’ the standout numbers.

‘By Your Side’ saw the band bring it down for some soulful blues and incredible vocal harmonies as Aaron and Grace poured their emotions into the song. It was quite a moment!

‘Aces Are High’ brought us back to dirty guitar riffs and sleazy vocals.

They closed the main set with ‘Free Man’ from 2019 before the crowd beckoned them back for an encore of ‘Golden’ and ‘Free Man’.

What a superb evening. We can’t wait to see them again!

When Rivers Meet play:

Northern Kin Festival on June 15, Maid of Stone Festival on July 20, Deva Fest on August 11 and A New Day Festival on August 16.