DE9A8021_gemma_hallBig Boy Bloater & The LiMiTs – The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh 19 June 2016. 7pm

Being a ‘woke-up-this-morning /feeling kinda existentialist’ journeyman Blues troubadour seems all in a day’s work for Big Boy Bloater, which is understandable if that is his birth-name. Even more if it is not.

Touring the UK on the back of their latest ambiguously titled album Luxury Hobo, Big Boy and his more modestly named band The Limits, or more accurately it seems, The LiMiTs, play The Voodoo Rooms this June 19th. So what is it with this contradictory album title then, The Edinburgh Reporter, blushing enquires of, err, Big Boy?

Embarking on the tour he had this to say, “The basic idea of the title,” Bloater explains, “is we are all luxury hobos these days, we get to go here, there and everywhere but no one has it the hard way now do they? We all have our luxuries, it’s that juxtaposition, I think the whole album is about the modern day life and society.” Any other questions? However, it is most likely they will be arriving in a tour-bus and not jumping from a flatcar at a red signal outside Waverley Station.

image005Variously describe as having a Tom Waits-esque, Jack Daniels mouthwash vocal register together with songs that offer ‘insights into rockier territories woven with barbed observation’ accolades include Imelda May being ‘a massive fan’ and ‘one of the greatest bluesmen of our time’ from Jools Holland. An invitation from Macca himself to record at Abbey Road would be enough to get any grizzly bluesman to wake up his morning on the right side of the bed.

If your bag of Blues (Man) is as deep, eclectic and as magical as the one Mary Poppins had then Big Boy Bloater & The LiMiTs promise influences of rock ‘n roll on the edge of 70s pub R&B, Mott the Hoople, T-Rex and much, much more. Hitch a lift with these gentlemen of the road, the highwaymen of hip who made a pact with The Man down at the Crossroads of cool. It is noisy, maybe nasty, nothing but a Big Boy’s Rows.

Tickets here 

 

 

 

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