Review: Chuck Prophet at The Tunnels

By The Bristol Post | Posted: October 15, 2014

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★★★★★

By Keith Clark

IN the 20 years Chuck Prophet has been coming to the UK he has often brought with him very well-known singers to open his shows. So it was not really surprising that the Bristol venue was already packed by the time Jonah Tolchin, his touring companion on this year’s tour, took to the stage.

Sadly Tolchin, who hails from New Jersey, was a tad disappointing. He has a big voice and his guitar playing was equally powerful, but vocally he often strayed from the notes and his playing was a little repetitive.

By the time Chuck Prophet and his regular band The Mission Express took to the stage the venue was full and ready to rock. He has a new album in the shops, Night Surfer, and we got plenty of new numbers that showed that Chuck Prophet has lost none of his ability to write extremely well-crafted narrative songs often with cascades of surreal imagery set to hook-laden melodies that stay in your head for hours.

Countrified Inner City was as riff heavy as a Rolling Stones song while there were echoes of The Beatles in the powerful Wish Me Luck.

Ford Econoline was about the most raunchy sounding homage to a van you are ever likely to hear, Tell Me Anything was incredibly catchy and for Guilty As A Saint he got the stage lights turned right down for what he described as “a sensitive song.”

But the night was dominated by classic Prophet from right across his long career. Songs like Just To See Your Smile, The Left Hand and The Right Hand, Castro Halloween, the quite surreal I Bow Down And Pray To Every Woman I See and the lengthy encore song You Did were greeted with loud cheers.

Temple Beautiful and Willy Mays Is Up To Bat, about a notable baseball star, turned into sing-alongs with the audience responding with loud enthusiasm. The extended version of Summertime Thing with Prophet trading his amazingly inventive guitar solos with fellow guitarist James DePrato was simply stunning. But then it was a stunning performance by an artist and a band that ne

Temple Beautiful and Willy Mays Is Up To Bat, about a notable baseball star, turned into sing-alongs with the audience responding with loud enthusiasm. The extended version of Summertime Thing with Prophet trading his amazingly inventive guitar solos with fellow guitarist James DePrato was simply stunning. But then it was a stunning performance by an artist and a band that that never fail to excite.

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