The Derby Hotel & Music Bar … Saturday 20th February 2016
* Last night The Forgotten Sons made their live debut in far-flung Barrow-in-Furness, at The Derby, one of the town’s undisputed top tier live music venues. Having made the 2-hour drive from their hometown of Pendle, the band were polite, professional and very keen throughout to please the local gig-goers. With two full 50+ minute sets of self-written and original groovy hard rock on offer, they delivered a fresh sound that was both thrilling and illuminating in equal measure.
The power trio consist of Chris Walton (vocals/guitar), bassist Steve Hemsworth (recovering from a recent broken leg) and drummer Tony. Thoughtful, melodic and expressive guitar parts, intuitive and fluid bass lines and slinky yet powerful drumming made for quite a combination.
Linking to their Pendle origins, they played a song called ‘The Other Sisters’, about the historic case of the so-called Pendle Witches, who were eventually tried and executed in Lancaster.
Other tracks, such as ‘The Fridge Magnet Song’, ‘Broken Road’ and ‘Anti-Social Media’ all contained interesting musical aspects which had members of the audience swaying along as the band worked out through the instrumental passages. You don’t often see that, and it’s a credit to the band that they pulled it off, despite the punters oft-times forgetting to applaud when a song ended.
Here’s hoping that they make a swift return and entice more people into their intriguing live show.