Yes Halloween at the Borderline this year means it's time to see Guitar God Bernie Torme whose music I have been dipping in and out of for a good 30 odd years now without remotely owning all of it, mainly because to start with I only bought the records for the cover versions but the wonders of social media have meant I have pledged for Bernies two most recent albums Flowers and Dirt and this year's Blackheart both of which are well worth finding.
We got in during Rusty G's opening set and as they weren't listed on the clubs website or the posters in the venue I thought we might have actually got to see a support band called Support!!
Either way they are a very young duo playing rather riffy heavy rock and I started looking at the stage to figure out how a guitar and drums duo had quite as much bass going on as they did and it took a bit of staring to figure out the guitarist was playing through an amp head that went into a splitter box and a Laney guitar cabinet and a peavey bass cabinet a neat trick that really filled out the sound.
Of the 4 songs we saw Static was the best one and stood out quite a bit as it had a nice sludgy bass driven undertow with the drummer pounding the hell out of his kit. The closer that may have been called You Don't know had a couple of cool false endings and they did a good job of getting all the old rockers in the house clapping along to it. They are worth checking out as a support act.
It wasn't long before Bernie Torme came on with his current band featuring long-time collaborator Chris Heilmann on bass and no he is not the hellfire preacher who tops any google search on his name but the Bass playing maestro and Ian Harris on Drums as he has been on the last 2 albums.
From the moment Bernie opens with an incendiary guitar solo to signal the start of Wild West it's clear they are in fine form as it featured some extremely nifty guitar work as Bernie sang with backing vocals from Chris it sounded colossally brilliant.
Bullet In The Brain amped up the fretwork on Bernies guitar with his hands flying all over the frets it was brilliant to watch and it has to be said Chris Heilmann's hands were working almost as hard on his 5 string bass. Blood Run Cold had plenty of fury for the love gone wrong it's about whoever the spurned woman was damn she was left in no doubt how much a persona non grata she has become as the fusillade of notes flying out of Bernies guitar did her down.
They then went back to the first Bernie Torme album I bought Turn Out The Lights for the title track of that bargain bin classic that was one of the best 99p buys I made in the 80's. Yes it still sounds great live too. Then they went to the new album Blackheart for a monumental run through pain Song with the music getting more and more pained as Bernie implored us to eat our pain it was furious and cathartic.
I'm sure I have the wrong title for the next song that I guess might be Arrows Fall either way it had more of the guitar pyrotechnics everyone in the Borderline wanted to hear and had the air Guitar championship part of the audience going at it like wild. It was then back into the back catalogue for a great version of Star even if it missed the list of stars such as Nastassja Kinski that are ad-libbed at the end of the recorded version.
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Dirt off the new album sounded pretty mighty and Ian Harris' drums seemed to be pounding us down into that dirt with vehement force damn they mean it.
Then it was time for a short acoustic section where Ian Harris played a resonator box and Chris Heilmann switched to a hollow bodied 4 string bass and Bernie was on an acoustic guitar for what I think I have down as Down The Road which is probably wrong either way it was cool to hear them stripped back and still bending those strings and making some great sounds.
I think it was Blood Run Cold from Flowers & Dirt next that brought the full on electric back to us and damn it was fiery. Then Ian Harris played a pretty cool drum solo as a long intro to the GMT classic Rocky Road (From Dublin) which allows Bernie to let his accent revert back to as Irish as he can make it. You Can't Beat Rock & Roll had loads of us singing along to the chorus of this monster of a rock song that nails everything we all love about Rock & roll.
I have the next song down as Evil and well it certainly had some evil guitar on it I sadly can't work out from my scrawled notes what the last song of the set was let's just say they left us wanting lots more of this High powered rock and roll.
It didn't take too much to persuade them to come back for an encore that featured one of the people who pledged enough towards the new album to be able to play on the encore in this case a Peter Cook joined them onstage and opened with what I have down as No Easy Road but may well be Spirit road apologies for any or all the errors still it had another monster solo from Bernie to make us all smile and Peter acquitted himself reasonably well they then closed the night with a very cool version of The Party's Over that seemed to be the perfect way to end a totally brilliant set even if Chris and Bernie did wince a touch at Peter's attempt at the solo still he looked like he was having the time of his life up there with his hero.
For more info on the remaining tour dates go to www.bernietorme.co.uk
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