On a wet and soggy Leamington Spa night, Copperhead Road played a night of up-tempo Americana, along with a few Christmas numbers. This was through the regular Saturday night’s The League of Extraordinary Sound sessions at the TUNEHOUSE at the TOWNHOUSE, a night of quality live music at Leamington Spa's Town House Inn.
The core of the band is Stephen “Stein” Steinhaus on vocals, kazoo, and maracas and Andy “The Bunn-dertaker” Bunn on acoustic guitar, mandolin, and backing vocals. They were joined by two guest musicians on the night with Pete “aka Stockholm Syndrome” Hurst on bass guitar, fiddle, and backing vocals and Jez “Sky” Walker on percussion/Cajon.
The band has regularly called on guest musicians with Bo Davies and Marion Fleetwood appearing during 2015 gigs.
The set contained a variety of Americana music including Everlong (Foo Fighters), Thunder Road (Bruce Springsteen), Plush (Stone Temple Pilots), Horse with No Name (Neil Young), Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp),
Copperhead Road (Steve Earle), Hush (Deep Purple), Fortunate Son (Clearwater Creedence Revival) and 7 Nation Army (The White Stripes).
They also played A Man of Constant Sorrow, made famous by the Soggy Bottom Boys (featuring George Clooney, Jon Turturro, and John Goodman) in the 2000 Coen Brothers film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”.
As a Christmas holiday set it also included some Christmas specials, with Santa Claus is coming to town (which with Stein being American is appropriate, and we will just ignore the 1930s Coca-Cola connection!), Merry Christmas Baby, and the classic Grandma got run over by a Reindeer!.
Throughout the evening Andy Bunn switched between his acoustic guitar (but with various pedals changing the sound to a harsher electric sound) and excellent playing of the mandolin. Pete Hurst mainly played bass guitar with switched to fiddle on songs such as A Man of Constant Sorrow.
As always Stein led the line with his powerful vocals and got some audience participation by getting watching Blues singer Zoe Green hand out maracas, tambourines etc..
Jez Walker kept up the percussion at rhythm from the back, having guested occasionally in 2015 including the Stratford River Festival.
The Townhouse in Leamington Spa holds several music nights with regular Open mic sessions on Tuesdays alongside the Saturday night sessions.
The next gig for Copperhead Road is on 9th January again at Tunehouse at Townhouse, in Leamington Spa, to kick off the 2016 sessions.
