Gig Review: The Damn Truth, The Grace, Highbury Corner, London

Gig Review: The Damn Truth, The Grace, Highbury Corner, London

By Simon Green

The last time I was at the Grace, an intimate upstairs venue above a cosy sized bar, the audience was sadly on the small side, way below the numbers that the act on the night deserved. There was no danger of that happening on this occasion. The Canadian band The Damn Truth have been regular visitors to the UK in the last couple of years, and were introduced to audiences, initially in support slots, where they made themselves a tough act to follow.

Their performance on this damp London evening was pretty similar to the previous times I’ve seen them…absolutely brilliant! They play a totally exhilarating brand of good time rock’n’roll music that draws on classic rock influences while incorporating their own distinctive creative ideas. Once they strapped on their instruments (and after leading a short singalong to their introductory music of ‘White Rabbit’) they delivered a high energy performance that had a visceral power that ignited the audience like a match tossed onto a haystack. They have a number of aces up their collective sleeves.

The Damn Truth look like and act like a cool rock band. If you saw them in the street you’d say, yep, definitely musicians. They bounced around the stage as if they had plugged themselves directly into the electricity system along with their amps. They must have studied the moves from footage of a thousand live concerts; Tom Shemer on lead guitar (master of a hundred riffs and some wild solos) and PY Letellier on bass continually threw shapes, strutting around the small stage like hyperactive teenagers, giving it large as we say over here. The mouth pick chewing bassist demonstrated some gravity defying limbo moves. Their energy was more than matched by their charismatic lead singer Lee-La Baum. You couldn’t take your eyes off of her as she sang with tremendous power, as well as control, and was the fulcrum through which the band’s collective dynamism was channelled.

Of course, the real trump in their hand is the fact that, although they only have three studio albums under their belt, an impressively high percentage of the tracks are absolute crowd pleasing, live belters. There aren’t many bands that have enough confidence in the quality of their material to start with a gold-plated number like ‘This Is Who We Are Now’, the opening, and for me, the outstanding track from their most recent album, 2021’s Now Or Nowhere. Talk about nought to sixty in ten seconds. The audience were putty in their hands after that, with more riff filled, big chorus numbers like ‘Only Love’, ‘Get With You’ and ‘Full On You’ to follow. The set included two recent singles ‘The Willow’ and ‘Love Outta Luck’, which indicated that the band’s songwriting skills continue to develop and whetted the appetite for what they might bring out next. The hour and a half set flew past quickly and left a slight feeling of breathlessness after they trooped off stage to more of the acclaim they’d been getting all evening from the highly enthused crowd. It’s hard to imagine that this band could ever deliver anything other than a 100% fully committed performance.

The truth is that The Damn Truth are too good to miss should they be touring in your neck of the woods.

Watch “Too Late”

 
The Damn Truth Tour Dates