California-based, Louisiana-grown is part of the tagline for American band Beaux Gris Gris And The Apocalypse. Tonight’s opening number, Trouble Is Coming, shows that southern swamp music groove that pervades the mixture of blues, rock, Americana, soul, and country influences that is their stock in trade.
Beaux Gris Gris And The Apocalypse
Bannermans Edinburgh – 18 April 2024
Words: Ian Sutherland
Photography: John McIntyre
The riff and the building rhythms just grab hold of your musical spirit and won’t let go. The audience is drawn in, spellbound, moving with the music and as the song extends ever longer it feels like we’re no longer in Edinburgh but in some sweaty New Orleans bar soaked in the traditions of that area.
Singer Greta Valenti and guitarist Robin Davey do the chat in between songs in a lovely, relaxed manner. But this is a band that lets their music do the talking, and their sound has a kind of seductive spell to it.
Every time one song finishes, you want the next to start.
Songs like Gris Gris and a spontaneous Bungalow Paradise just keep that groove flowing effortlessly and the new songs from the yet to be released Hot Nostalgia Radio album fit in just as well.
Mamma Cray is a nice touch with an accordion led groove taking them ever further into their roots while Wild Woman has a stomp of a different kind, thundering along like a steamroller with swing.
By the time you get to the traditional set closing sing along of What’s My Name and the inevitable encores are played, it’s been a full two and a quarter hours since that mesmerising intro.
The growing audience for Beaux Gris Gris And The Apocalypse is sweaty and sated by a band who have something special. They seem simultaneously to have a nostalgia for old-school musical traditions yet are somehow able to make it modern and relevant and above all captivating.
What’s my name? Ooh la la yeah Beaux Gris Gris is something the world is going to be singing more and more over the next few years.
An essential live band.
