Bristol based band The Terraplanes Blues Band rocked up to a very hot basement venue at Temperance café in Leamington Spa. The band’s style melds British Rhythm & Blues with Louisanna & New Orleans musical influences and the band’s name comes from a Robert Johnson song Terraplane Blues, which was recorded in 1936.
The band’s line-up was: Nick Scrase (Guitar/Vocals), Eduardo Allen (Harmonica & backing vocals), Andy Hutt (Drums) and Craig Shaw (bass & backing vocals).
The band has been together for over 10 years and have won UK Blues awards including the 2023 UK Blues Emerging Blues Act of the Year. The bands founding members are Nick Scrase who in October 2023 was playing a Robert Johnson blues tune at the Open Mic at The Greenhouse. Eduardo Allen (originally from Portugal) was passing and had a harmonica in his pocket, so decided to go in and join Nick.
The first set kicked off with a couple of tracks from the ‘Midnight Train’ EP with ‘Midnight Train’ which is a honky tonk blues song with multi harmonies followed with some great slide guitar on ‘Voodoo Blues’ with great blues harmonica from Eduardo.
This was followed by a couple of foot stompers with Robert Johnson’s ‘Sitting on the Top of the World’ and ‘1930s’ before a change in tempo to a slower blues tune with a track from the ‘Stepping Stones’ album ‘Pick Myself Up’ with its train sounds harmonica. Also featured from the ‘Stepping Stones’ album was ‘Night Bus’ with its story about travelling around at 2am.
After a break, which was needed with the hot conditions, the second half started with just Nick on guitar with ‘Me & the Devil’ before Eduardo joined him on Robert Johnson’s ‘Love in Vain’. Then the full band returned on a very early Rolling Stones song ‘Spider & the Fly’. This was followed with some great slide guitar and funky bass line on ‘My Malaise’.
With sweat now pouring off the band members in the heat they gave us great blues numbers with ‘Don’t Do Me Wrong’ and the debut for a brand-new song with ‘Hazy Jane’ with its great blues beat. The set finished off with ‘Rattlesnake Blues’ and for an encore ‘John the Revelator’.
