Review By Bernie Bell
Next thing, he turned up playing with The Driftwood Cowboys as part to the Folk Festival earlier this year – very versatile, can play, and play so well, in different genres of music. Hmmmmm- definitely one to watch.
Then, Fiona-Next-Door sent me a link to listen to one of her tunes on that ‘Cloud’ thing. I listened to Fiona’s – then saw other folk down the side of the ‘page’. One of these was Tom. So….I had a listen to one of his self-written songs ‘Digging for the Sun’. It was good – it’s always good when musicians start to do their own stuff, rather than just covers. I thought – he wants to be Bruce Springsteen – not a bad person to want to emulate! The thing is – Tom had actually caught some of the feel of some of Bruce’s more quiet songs – he didn’t just want to be Bruce – he was managing to have some of that sound. Further down the list, I saw that he also did ‘I’m on Fire’ by Bruce, so I listened. I get ratty if folk cover people that I like, and don’t do it well – but Tom did ‘I’m on Fire’ and he did it very well indeed. I wanted to write something in the ‘comments’ , and ask where we could go to hear him play, but it wouldn’t let me. Fiona told me that I’d have to be signed up to the ‘Cloud’ malarkey – I’m not a musician, don’t get on well with t’Internet, so…I didn’t! But decided to tell Tom what I thought, if I got the chance.
Then…..on the programme for the Blues Fest. , this year, there was Tom – early Saturday evening, Stromness Hotel. I’d thought he was one to watch – so we went to watch him – and listen.
He sat down quietly with his Fender, and …..played. Just played. Didn’t do a tune, then pause for applause, just….got onto the groove, and flowed with it.
Some people are good, some are very good indeed – I’m a great fan of Coop on guitar – but this lad is exceptional. A lot of people were yabbering away, not listening. How can folk not listen to something like that? The way that I could listen was, to cut out the side noises, focus, and go into the music. I was doing this, when someone I know came up and put his hand on my shoulder – I nearly jumped out of my skin! I was so deep in the music, I’d managed to cut out the extraneous noises and the surrounding ‘world’. I think maybe Tom does that too. I don’t know how he manages to sit and play through all the noise otherwise. He certainly looked like that was what he was doing. His eyes showed him to be – somewhere else – in the music.
I’m afraid I don’t have a photo – I don’t take my camera to music gigs – I noticed Tom O’Brien, the ‘Orcadian’ photographer taking pics of Tom, and I hope that there will be one of him in the ‘Orcadian’ coverage of the Blues Fest.
This lad really is one to watch. Maybe I shouldn’t call him a lad, as he’s very much grown up now, but, I’m an old lady and refer to most people as lads, or lassies. I hope Tom is going to do something with his exceptional ability. Playing with The Drift wood Cowboys is a good thing – he’ll learn a lot from Duncan McLean – but – The Driftwood Cowboys hardly ever perform. And….I want to hear more from Tom!!!!!!!
Playing a bit of Django Reinhardt would be…………….nice.
One to watch – you read it here.
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