KRIS BARRAS (Live)

At The Cluny, Newcastle, U.K., February 8, 2019

KRIS BARRAS (Live at The Cluny, Newcastle, U.K., February 8, 2019)
Photo: Mick Burgess

As a former MMA/Cage Fighter, Kris Barras will undoubtedly save a fortune on security on this tour. Anyone daft enough to bustle their way onto his stage will soon find themselves on the receiving end Kimura armlock or worse.

How a fighter found themselves as a touring Blues musician makes for a fascinating story but one that could have come to an abrupt end at any time with one wrong move causing lifelong damage to those vital guitarist fingers.

Fortunately for Barras he came through that relatively unscathed and cut one imposing figure on stage at The Cluny. Such was the demand for tickets, that the show had to be upgraded from Cluny 2 to the bigger hall which is always something that an artist likes to hear.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Runnin’ Thru My Veins and Kick Me Down do just what they say on the tin, they Rock hard with a strong Bluesy vein running right down the middle.

His cover of Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll was an absolute barnstormer driven by Josiah J Manning’s furious Honky Tonk piano. The beautiful, laid back Propane featured a chorus that would surely be all over FM radio in The States and Hail Mary showed Barras knows how to pen a top tune or two.

Barras is no novelty act, a sportsman wandering into the music world for a bit of fun, to live out their Rock star dreams. He is the real deal. Not only does he posses the required smoking, gruff powerhouse Blues voice but his guitar smokes with intensity, whether on the dirty, gritty Blues riffs, the sleazy slidework or the screaming solos, Barras has it covered.

Such is his rising reputation, Barras is also a member of the Supersonic Blues Machine alongside ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Steve Lukather of Toto and Warren Haynes, guitarist in the Allman Brothers Band. If that’s not a glowing endorsement of his talents then nothing is.

Expect to see Barras in a much, much bigger venue very soon.

Review and Photos By Mick Burgess

Author

  • Mick Burgess

    Mick is a reviewer and photographer here at Metal Express Radio, based in the North-East of England. He first fell in love with music after hearing Jeff Wayne's spectacular The War of the Worlds in the cold winter of 1978. Then in the summer of '79 he discovered a copy of Kiss Alive II amongst his sister’s record collection, which literally blew him away! He then quickly found Van Halen I and Rainbow's Down To Earth, and he was well on the way to being rescued from Top 40 radio hell!   Over the ensuing years, he's enjoyed the Classic Rock music of Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple; the AOR of Journey and Foreigner; the Pomp of Styx and Kansas; the Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, and Symphony X; the Goth Metal of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica, and a whole host of other great bands that are too numerous to mention. When he's not listening to music, he watches Sunderland lose more football (soccer) matches than they win, and occasionally, if he has to, he goes to work as a property lawyer.

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