Alabama 3 decided to mark the 25th anniversary of their song ‘Woke Up This Morning’ having been used for the opening credits of the American crime drama television series The Sopranos by heading out on a tour of the UK last December to celebrate their first two albums, Exile On Coldharbour Lane and La Peste, both of which feature the track.
And now the seven-piece band from Brixton, South London, are hellbent on continuing these celebrations deep into 2025 with a further run of dates in the UK and Ireland, where they will play a set stacked full of tracks from both albums as well as some of their greatest hits.
It is May Day. Summer has officially arrived. It is the hottest 1st of May on record in this country. And the Alabama 3 are burning. They first embarked upon an incendiary musical journey mixing country with techno some three decades ago, and on tonight’s evidence alone, are showing absolutely no signs of dousing those flames.
“Welcome to the Hotel California.” We are not, in fact, in the Golden State. We are all rammed into a hot, sticky, and sold-out-weeks-ago former working men’s club in York. And with that greeting, Alabama 3’s night begins. “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbours are listening,” Steely Dan had suggested many years ago, and it is with similar disdain that Alabama 3 set about deconstructing that staple of late ’70s FM radio. It certainly makes for a rousing start.
Two songs later, and during ‘Ain’t Goin’ To Goa’, The Very Reverend D. Wayne Love’s voice can be heard from beyond the grave. The co-founding member of the band passed away in 2019, and whilst his loss is still keenly felt, he has been granted the gift of eternal life in an Alabama 3 live show.
And then, five songs in, Alabama 3 dispense with the formality of ‘Woke Up This Morning.’ As the band’s frontman Larry Love explains, by placing their best-known song so early on in the set, it disabuses the notion of them being one-hit wonders and also saves everyone from having to hang around for it to arrive as the third and final encore. He has a point. But no matter where it arrives, it still sounds great.
“It’s now gonna get fuckin’ weird,” Larry Love warns us. And the Alabama 3 do certainly start to move up through the gears. There is an incendiary ‘U Don’t Dans to Techno Anymore’ where the divine wisdom of fusing country and western music with acid house quickly becomes clear. As if there could have been any doubt, ‘The Old Purple Tin (9% of Pure Heaven)’ confirms that Alabama 3 sure can play the blues, and here Devlin Love’s voice mutates into a potent hybrid of Maggie Bell and Janis Joplin. And just for good measure, they also pay a debt to gospel music with ‘Mahalia.’
The unmistakeable voice of The Very Reverend D. Wayne Love returns for a magnificent ‘Hypo Full of Love (The 12 Step Plan)’ before the Alabama 3 leave the stage to only return a few minutes later for a triple-fusillade encore featuring a delightful duet between Larry and Devlin on ‘The Thrills Have Gone’; the fists-in-the-air rallying cry of ‘Mao Tse Tung Said,’ which is dedicated here to Kneecap who have been the recent focus of heavy criticism over two video clips that had emerged of the Irish rap trio, but have also received widespread support from within the music industry who have “registered opposition to any political repression of artistic freedom”; and then, finally, the unifying sound of ‘Peace in the Valley’ all of which firmly put paid to any lingering doubts that may have still remained that 30 years into their career Alabama 3 had begun to lose any of their their passion, their fire, or their relevance.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Alabama 3 at The Crescent, York.
