Seasick Steve at The Astoria

Seasick Steve at The Astoria

21 July, 2008
by: Domzig

No man is an island, so they say, but go to the Astoria on your own and you'll feel like the Moon rather than a hunk of rock floating off another one. Admittedly this is my first time out on my lonesome, but you're never more alone than when you're in a crowd, right? When it's a type of music you're not really into the isolation becomes chronic.

Luckily by the time I've traversed London and made it to Denmark Street, I just have time to admire the layout before the first bad rocks up on stage. One song I love is Talking Head's 'Nothing But Flowers' – the whole calypso vibe makes me think of sunglasses, sunning myself and generally being on holiday. This is probably the reason why I can't help but like Vinnie and the Dancers whose every song sounds just like it except the lyrics keep going on about a guy called Pablo. Still being Swedish they're impossibly good looking, good fun and a scarily weird, especially when you factor in the fact that the lead singer is in drag.

When they shuffled off it's about 8:15, leaving me in a bit of a quandary as Seasick Steve isn't on until 9. Having the shortest attention span in world, I decide that mind games are in order, so I spend the next forty five minutes trying to mentally calculate how many people here are over the age of 40 and what percentage of them listen to 6 Music on a regular basis.

While I'm wrestling with these calculations, the stage suddenly goes dark and a hippy and a kid meander on stage with a bass drum and a kettle drum – sort of like the Independence Day scene from The Great Escape. Then from out of the crowd Steve appears and the blues rocking commences.

I really like Seasick Steve, he's got a very disarming quality about him; turning a packed to rafters Astoria into a campfire where the old hobo tells you tales of being on the road building shelters in the deepest forests of Washington State and killing life threatening bugs, all the while supping whisky and reclining in some chairs from an English Manor (he proudly declares that he stole them from the Enemy later in the show). When he's not drinking Jack Daniels and spinning yarns about living in the woods, Steve is busy playing some of the saltiest blues you'll ever hear.

My only gripe is that he brings on KT Turnstall to help him through a few songs. She does very little singing and generally looks dead uncomfortable, sort of like a rabbit sitting next to an angry wolf. Apart from that the show is awesome, especially the songs when Steve uses a drummer – a hippy haired berserker who played like Animal out of The Muppets and pretty much improvises his way through most of Steve’s set.

Seasick Steve teaches us all that being a hobo riding trains can be a cool career prospect, even if you have to run away from the law on a regular basis and sleep in dumpsters you can write amazing bluesy songs about it. When the lights go up and Steve thanks everyone for coming for the hundredth time I realise that even though I've stood on my own with a killer head cold amongst a crowd of aging VH-1 watchers and had to endure the company of KT Turnstall (one of the most annoying people ever!) I've actually had a lot of fun.

He's playing the Albert Hall in October, which is pretty funny when you think about it. I mean when was the last time you saw a hobo in the Albert Hall...

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Domzig