Made another long road trip for music last night, driving over four hours to see The Heavy play at the (very sweaty) Basement in Columbus, Ohio. They’re a British band who plays a great mix of hard rock and soul. If you consider Prince a Sly and the Family Stone disciple who sometimes mixes in Hendrix guitar, then just flip the ratios around and that’s sort of what we’re talking about here. Although, they can also decide to do straight up retro-soul sometimes. And horns, don’t forget horns.
The show was sold out, and the trip was totally worth it. The six-piece band played a short, smartly paced set that welcomed the crowd into its company early and then gradually built everybody up until they were ready for the frenzied finale of their two biggest ‘hits,’ “That Kind of Man” (below) and “How You Like Me Now.”
The main thing I want to say is that I really hope The Heavy get to tour here more often, because as good as they were, you can tell that if they got a bigger stage, more time (and maybe a back-up singer) they could really blow your mind. When you see a band like this, you think “it’s so easy, why doesn’t everybody do this?,” but clearly it’s not because there aren’t nearly enough bands like this around for my liking.
