The UK’s premier classic rock festival Ramblin’ Man Fair returns to Maidstone in Kent on 19-21 July, featuring a typically enticing combination of big-hitting guitar bands, including The Darkness, Black Stone Cherry, Foreigner, Cheap Trick, Richie Kotzen and Living Colour.
However, it’s also a vintage year for emerging talent in the rock world – and 2019’s Ramblin’ Man Fair offers a rare chance to catch an astonishing cross-section of the next generation in action.
The likes of Kris Barras, Raveneye, The Lazys, Sweet Crisis and Austin Gold – not to mention 16 bands on The Rising Stage – will all be given a platform alongside the line-up’s veterans. It is an embarrassment of riches – or should that be riffses? Read on for our pick of 10 essential new and established six-string stars to catch at Ramblin’ Man 2019.
1. Oli Brown - RavenEye
Saturday, Main Stage
Oli Brown had already been ploughing a furrow as a blues wünderkind for nigh-on a decade when he formed his heavy power trio Raveneye back in 2014. A darker, heavier beast, the group have become seasoned performers, serving a dream apprenticeship supporting the likes of Aerosmith, KISS, Slash and Deep Purple. They know how to handle stages big and small and, while Brown has always had more chops than Jet Li, these days he’s learned to channel it with suggestive menace and dynamic, riff-laden writing.
2. Rick Nielsen - Cheap Trick
Saturday, Main Stage
One of rock’s great masters of overstatement, Nielsen has made goofing around onstage into an art form. The irony, of course, is that only players with serious underlying ability can pull-off this brand of mesmerising nonsense (see also: Angus Young, Justin Hawkins). Nielsen’s mutant fingerstyle playing is as exhilarating and characterful as the man himself, but never outstays its welcome. “I always wrote songs so I could look at the audience and not my neck,” he told MusicRadar in 2017. “I want to see people picking their noses or looking the other way, haha!”
3. Matty Morris - The Lazys
Friday, Main Stage
What is it about Australia and raucous rock ’n’ roll bands? The Lazys dwell in Toronto these days but hail from the land down under. Breaking through as we speak, they channel the irresistible hard rocking lineage of their fellow countrymen AC/DC and, more recently, Airborne. As such, they play every gig like it is their last and drink every beer like it is their first. Lead player Matty Morris intertwines LA hard rock scuttle and boozy blues slide amid four-to-the-floor thunder.
4. Justin Hawkins - The Darkness
Friday, Main Stage
The man who took a one way ticket to hell – and back. Who quite literally rode the tiger. Who hired helicopters without caring for the bill then, some years later, realised how expensive helicopters are and stopped hiring them. Who once ordered McDonald’s onstage and received his fries mid-set. If you feel that, lately, your life has been lacking a lithe lead guitarist in a catsuit thrusting a crotch-corset beneath an un-chambered Les Paul, Ramblin’ Man has your back.
5. Kris Barass
Friday, Main Stage
A blistering bluesman and former MMA fighter, Barass knows how to play with, err, punch [sorry - Ed]. “[In MMA] I’d have to get up at five in the morning and go for runs, then do a full day of work for years,” Barass told MusicRadar in 2017. “To have that dedication for years and be committed to getting half-decent at something helps.” It has paid-off. His 2018 album The Divine And Dirty has received rave reviews and he’s been on the road ever since, including a stint with Billy Gibbons et al in the star-studded Supersonic Blues Machine. Expect to see a confident, scuzzy guitarist who’s star is very much on the rise.
6. Vernon Reid - Living Colour
Sunday, Main Stage
Reid is one of those guitarists who seems to wring almost unbelievable sounds from his instrument. His lead lines are psychedelic and cartoon-like, seeming to leap, shred and swing between a vast array of rock, metal, blues, funk and jazz touchstones. Unlike a few of his late-80s contemporaries, Reid’s playing never had its edges rounded-off by time and still feels as vibrant, inspiring and timelessly unique as ever.
7. Wille Edwards – Wille & The Bandits
Outlaw Country Stage
Wille Edwards is a formidable slide talent. He learned the instrument from a guitarist dubbed Smoky while travelling in Australia; busking around the country, camping and singing for his supper. It’s a work ethic that came home with him to the UK and the singer/songwriter’s band still play 250+ shows a year. He is the classic itchy-footed musician, the closest thing to a true home being his Anderwood Weissenborn guitars, from which he wrangles huge velvet-y distortions and vocal-like expression like it’s second nature.
8. Chantel McGregor
The Blues Stage
A multiple award-winning guitarist – she’s won Player Of The Year at the British Blues Awards, twice – Chantel McGregor’s 2011 debut Like No Other was part-pop, part-classic rock, while 2015 album Lose Control charted a path between Southern Gothic moodiness and heavy blues rock. Her long-awaited third record is in the works now, so her set at Ramblin’ Man is well-timed to offer some clues as to the next stage in McGregor’s impressive evolution.
9. David James Smith - Austin Gold
Sunday, Main Stage
Peterboroughs’ Austin Gold seem to have momentum on their side. 2017’s debut Before Dark Clouds offered a compelling blend of Black Country Communion’s classic rock chops and Audioslave heft, now album number two is imminent and they’re already writing their third. Frontman and lead player David James Smith summons big bruising Morello-y riffs in his writing, but slips into Page-like blues wail, and Slash-y crescendos with ease.
10. Richie Kotzen
The Blues Stage
From his origins as a Shrapnel-signed shred star in the 80s, through to his work with Poison, Mr Big, numerous solo records and, more recently, his stint in power trio The Winery Dogs alongside Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy – there’s seemingly no challenging scenario that Kotzen can’t handle. More importantly, while, yes, he can melt faces into liquid form with the best of them, compared to your run-of-the-mill shred-heads his spectacular lead playing is far more musical, exhilaratingly off-the-cuff and, ultimately, soulful.