Chantel McGregor – Bannermans – Edinburgh – 26th May 2023 – Gig Review

27th May 2023 0 By Jon Deaux

A gorgeous day in the Scottish capital. It looks like the 3 days of summer have officially started, and what better way to kick it off than seeing blues prog maestro Chantel McGregor?

After a 45-minute ‘fluffer'(his words not mine) set from the incredible Stoney Broke, Chantel and her band takes the stage and immediately break into an instrumental jam before kicking into high gear with Take The Power. From that moment it was game on and for the next 80minutes, the band take you on a rollercoaster journey that features the classic Freefalling from her Like No Other record, a gorgeous rendition of Fleetwood Macs Rhiannon, and the jaw-dropping instrumental prog track April.

The beautiful Eternal Dream has a very welcome outing. Performed acoustically and completely solo it showcases perfectly how talented she is as a songwriter. This is backed up by the incredible I Can’t Make You Love Me.

My personal favorite is Your Fever (taken from the Lose Control album) and a spectacular version was rolled out along with Burn Your Anger and of course Lose Control itself.

Sadly her usual bassist Jake couldn’t make this short run of Scottish shows. However, Harry Vernon stepped into his shoes After a week of learning the set and meeting Chantel the morning of this show, he’s plunged straight into the deep end.

If you’ve seen Chantel live before, then you know she gets fully lost in the music and has a habit of going off on tangents, so it takes a special kind of musician to keep up with her butterfly mind and play this technical music. He was incredible. It was like he’d been playing with her for yonks.

I’ve been lucky enough to catch Chantel live many times and she never disappoints. She’s played these songs hundreds of times yet STILL gets all consumed by the music. To watch and hear her play is something quite magical. Maybe it’s the shy, girl next door persona but you don’t expect such a loud and powerful voice to come from such a teenie tiny person. You also don’t expect solos that have a touch of the Dave Gilmore and Gary Moore structures mixed with her own soulfulness to fall out of her guitar.

I implore you to see Chantel McGregor live. She truly is something special.