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The Coach House After seeing Anthony opening for Eric Sardinas, my little group of blues band followers added him to our list of must-sees. I've seen him twice now, once opening for Sardinas and once at his own headliner show. At the first show, Gomes played mainly from his Unity album (which is his best, I think) and totally got the crowd into his performance. Looking flashier and more together than most of the people who play the Coach House (except for Sardinas, maybe) he played a beautiful sunburst Fender Strat and put on a rousing performance with his bassist, drummer and keyboard player. That night he definitely gave Sardinas something to worry about, and I'm sure it pushed Eric to work a little harder than usual. Between Gomes' guitar playing, his more than evident love of music, and his voice (which I still find hard to believe really comes from him) it turned into one of the best nights I've ever had at the Coach House. The second time I saw Gomes, it was more of a disappointment, not because of his band, but because of the crowd. Realizing early on that most of the people were there to see one of the two opening acts, I knew that the crowd was only going to get thinner as the night progressed. Dumbasses. Once again, Gomes came out and put on a fantastic performance, playing about 50-50 new stuff and unrecorded "test" songs. This time around he had a totally sexy quilt-top hollow-body Fender Tele ... sigh. It sounded soo fucking good. As for his music, his new stuff seemed to be a little more hard and edgy and he seemed to be moving away from the total gospel/blues sound he does so well. And my god, he can rock as well as he can play the blues. Sadly there were only a handful of people left at the show's end, and I could almost sense a bewilderment on Anthony's face. You know it's gotta sting just a little. Seriously folks, if you like blues or gospel, you have got to see Gomes. He's like an unpopular Jonny Lang with better guitar skills and a deeper, rougher voice that suits his music to a T. All in all, he's got it pretty well down: the performance, the guitar chops, and most importantly the voice. There are not too many bands anymore I'd go out of my way to see, but he is one of them. Catch him at least once if you can, I guarantee you won't be disappointed. Anthony's website can be reached here. |
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