Album Review: 8 Ball Aitken - Alive In Tamworth

Hailing from our Far North, fire-bearded blues and roots gent 8 Ball Aitken has dropped a live album to follow up a successful run of four studio long-players to date. The Q Song Award winner takes no risks though on Alive In Tamworth, sticking to his classic, crowd-pleasing brand of blues and roots.

Kicking things off with the award-winning song in question, Yellow Moon goes down a treat with an obviously responsive crowd clapping and singing along. Aitken has the Tamworth folks in the palm of his multi-instrumental hands as he romps, stomps and honky tonks his way through home favourites from last year's The Tamworth Tapes like Nobody Looks Ugly After Midnight, Rogue Pony and Take This Hammer. Aitken's supporting band works wonders with some raw snippets of bluesy guitar slides and heavy roots riffing without getting too carried away. He puts his laid-back, unaffected drawl over the more subdued guitar flicks and offbeat rhythms in Run With The Pack, then cranks it up a notch with his signature guttural wail on Good Time Music.

As far as live albums go though, it's not the ultimate. The crowd interaction with Aitken and co. is clearly evident from both sides, with lots of banter about 'up North' and call and response moments that sound so awful they're genuinely funny. What's missing is a bit of rawness to make the home listener feel part of the crowd. For instance there's some very odd and obvious editing, and although it clearly wasn't recorded as a stadium spectacular, it sounds as though there are about ten people in the audience. But it's only small quibble for an otherwise enjoyable blues and roots recording.