The Scruffy Dog Blues Club hosts, through Shaun Freke, a monthly Blues Club at the England’s Glory pub in Gloucester. For August Drew Neirin & Star Shaped Pegs from Bath were the main act with their blues & soul sound. They were supported by the effervescent blues guitarist from Cardiff James Oliver.
The band line-up was Drew Neirin (guitar & vocals), Marie-Louise Hall (bass and backing vocals) and Earl St. John (keyboard & backing vocals).
Drew is very much a people person and has until recently been hosting his popular radio show "You, Drew and a Song or 2" on Bath Radio, which has now become a podcast on Spotify.
Drew has a great blues/soul voice and is backed with solid bass from Marie and great keyboard from Earl and they started off with a couple of originals with the soulful & funky rhythm to ‘No Such Thing As Too Long’ and ‘To the Bone’ written at the beginning of the COVID lockdown which Drew showed his great blues guitar breaks to go with his vocals.
The song that became the band name ‘Star Shaped Pegs’, which was influenced by Hoochie Coochie Man, echoed around the venue with its great blues guitar and foot stomping beat.
We were then treated to a brand-new song that had just been uploaded to Bandcamp that day ‘So I heard’ with its funky bass line, great piano support from Earl and strong vocals from Drew. This was followed by another original with ‘Love Me All You Want’ with its soul influences with great blues guitar work.
A cover from Dr Feelgood with ‘Check Book’, highlighted its great guitarwork, but this version had a more blues & soul feeling. This was followed by one of Drew’s favourites with ‘This is the Good Part’ which allowed him to get carried away with the guitar breaks and the heavy blues vocals.
Another strong song was ‘Groove Thing’ which Drew had uploaded and then taken down multiple times before he got to a version, he was happy with, but he loves playing it live with its soul & blues style.
The band finished off as an encore with three songs from Quentin Tarantino films including ‘Stuck in the Middle’ and ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ to great applause from the attentive audience.
