Review | Ginger Wildheart and The Sinners at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea: 'A country-rock powerhouse'

The four-piece have clearly had a bit of a time of it on their debut tour, but they are finally here in Portsmouth and, thankfully, in good humour about their travails.

Ginger, best known as the mercurial frontman of The Wildhearts, formed this new(ish) band before lockdown, but was forced to sit on the project for two years while his ‘main’ band disintegrated (again).

However, it has been well-worth the wait.

Created with guitarist/vocalist Neil Ivison and bassist Nick Lyndon of British Americana act Stone Mountain Sinners, plus drummer Shane Dixon, they have created a country-rock powerhouse.

The set is packed with gorgeous two, three, and frequent four-way harmonies. The a capella intro to their cover of Status Quo’s Dirty Water is particularly lush – until the Pompey crowd stuffs it up by failing so badly to clap in time it throws the band off and they collapse in giggles and disarray. On the restart they opt to lead into the Quo classic with a snatch of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls instead.

It is, as Ginger points out ‘one of those sorts of days.’

There’s an easy camaraderie between the band on stage, with Ginger more than happy to cede frontman duties to Ivison on numerous occasions. There’s also a running joke about how Ivison announced ‘Hello Portsmouth’ at their Plymouth date earlier in the tour – at least he, sort of, gets it right this time.

At one point there’s even a four-legged stage invader – Maggie, Ginger’s beloved dog, who is also a registered emotional support pet.

While the set unsurprisingly leans heavily on the recently released debut album, they already have a second album recorded and we get several of those songs as well. Lately, Always and Footprints in The Sand from the debut are highpoints.

Plus there’s a smattering of covers – a bit of Little Feat’s Willin’, Broken Down Angel by Nazareth, and Six Years Gone by Georgia Satellites – first hearing the latter song was the catalyst for Ginger to form a band with this sound.

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And their version of Stone Mountain Sinners’ Arms of Love demonstrates what Ginger saw in them – it’s rollicking, rootsy rock’n’roll could well be a blueprint for the current band’s sound.

Anyone wanting to hear Wildhearts songs played by this band will be disappointed (they did play one or two in their early shows, since dropped from the set), but we do get a rather lovely version of Ginger’s solo track Words Are Gonna Have To Wait.

Having no truck with fake encores, the band refuse to leave the stage just to come back on again.

They finish by inviting support act Boss Caine back on to join them for a joyous run through of The Band’s The Weight.

The show may have at times been ramshackle, but it fits the music – and when they play, they really do soar.

To massively bastardise Oscar Wilde: given the band’s vocal talents, these guys are The Eagles lying in a British city’s gutter – rather than sitting in LA mansions – but still looking at the stars.