Monday, May 31, 2010

FTA back on the beat ... 28 - 29 May

Friday night was a mixture of the new and the old.  The Velkommen Inn hosted Bayon Blues, with the acoustic blues fireworks of Little Duke, the sensational Kristin on vocals, and the everywhere-at-once Bong Thom squeezing and bending away on the harmonica.  Good old traditional blues, played damn well - a nice clean crisp sound.  You can be forgiven for wondering if you're in Phnom Penh at all.  Then it was a short step up the river to the Chinese House where the Mekong Pirates juggernaut were making their presence felt.  A huge crowd helped set the night alight, but it turns out I missed some serious wildness at the end of the night by succumbing to the need to sleep and heading home early.

On Saturday night Chinese House again the venue of choice.  The Bong Thom dot Com tenth anniversary party featured four bands:  Bayon Blues, the Hellhounds, the Cambodian Space Project and the debut of Espresso Thmei (technically just the CSP pocket-size edition, showcasing Srey Thy's vocals with acoustic guitar and a little harmonica).   The Hounds stuck to the straight and narrow with guest Canadian Dave on bass, and the CSP continued to refine its post-electric sound, with Bong Sak on a smaller but no less effective drumkit, and encouraging to the front the clarinet of Bun Hong

So here's the call, people:  please send in gig reports,  let us all know where it's happening and who's doing it.  It was great to see writeups from new contributors at the end of last month, keep them coming.   See you next weekend somewhere.