Belfast’s Dom Martin a multi award-winning Blues artist rocked up to St. Mary’s Church in Barry, South Wales, as part of his acoustic tour, with support from Demi Marriner, to enthral a packed audience.
Dom came up onto the stage with his stripped-down acoustic set which worked wonderfully well with the great acoustics in the church with its vaulted ceiling. It took him back to the start of his musical career where he played solo in venues around his Belfast, Northern Ireland home.
He started with what he explained was the hardest song to play on the set ‘The Fall’ with its great guitar picking along with his passionate singing.
Dom had always been inspired by other Irish musicians, in particular John Martin, who had translated his next song ‘Jelly Roll Baker’, a 1940s blues classic, from piano to guitar.
He performed some new songs on his setlist that will appear on his new album including ‘Played into Haunted’ with its unusual guitar tuning, gruff vocals with Irish inflections in his personal story.
Music and guitars (and more guitars) in particular were how he managed to change his life style, as he stated "I am happy to be 10 years clean and 5 years sober" with the song ‘Easy Way Out’. This led into a more stripped-down version of his song ‘Belfast Blues’ with more time to show off his amazing guitar playing.
Then Dom invited his close friend, from Portrush, Ben Graham to join him on bass on ‘Hell for You’ which Dom wrote for psychopaths and an amusing story about re-arranged furniture!, this led into ‘Mercy’ with its great guitar work. Then the song ‘Dog Eat Dog’ allowed Dom to switch to his metal resonating guitar and some impressive slide guitar work.
Then to finish Dom invited Demi to join them for triple harmonies on ‘Daylight I will Find’ with its great guitar playing from all three. After great applause Dom and Ben came back for an encore to play ‘Dealer’ with Dom’s deep and powerful vocals.
The evening started with support Demi Marriner with her blend of Americana and personal songs with her wonderful voice and guitar playing. She is a backing singer in Elles Bailey’s band and had also been seen in group Girls Night In touring earlier this year.
Her set included some songs that were interesting to play in a church setting including ‘Sins’ and ‘God Nor Devil’ She has a great soaring voice along with her excellent guitar work.
From work Demi did on a musical retreat in Bentonville, Arkansas (a very odd experience as it is Walmart’s head office town and squirrel cooking experiments!) came two songs with ‘Distorted Desires’ written for a friend, and One Way Conversation’.
The love of song writing came from listening to country music on her sofa on her own, and this led to two new songs ‘Think of Me’ with its lovely plaintive vocals and one she co-wrote with Elles Bailey tentatively called ‘Best of Me’ which Demi is trialling on this tour.
She finished with ‘Little Boy’ wrote for her aunt’s first child who had a difficult start to life. The audience then showed their appreciation with loud applause and many joined her on the merch table afterwards.
