The Dirty Dozen

From Nashville With Love…

Skinny Molly (The Flowerpot Derby) 04/02/12…

Although having heard of Skinny Molly somehow I’ve failed spectacularly to see them live which is a major oversight on my behalf as they tend to play the flowerpot in Derby every year. This time however I’ve purchased ticket number one to see the Nashville based band whose name is an amalgam of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet. Why this turn of events you may ask, well, back in November last year legendary southern rock band Blackfoot appeared at the flowerpot fronted by Skinny Molly’s Mike Estes, his performance on that occasion sold tonight’s show for me.

Skinny Molly have been over in the UK for a couple of weeks and tonight sees the Tennessee band traversing near arctic conditions to reach the west midlands city of Derby. I’ve only just managed to get to the venue myself sadly I’m in a minority, the turn out is woeful due to the heavy snow. This state of affairs doesn’t faze the southern rockers, as they take to the stage the small crowd make them more than welcome. Mike Estes along with Jay Johnson take on the lead guitar duties between them and although Mike sings most of the songs Jay holds sway on songs such as Blackfoot’s ‘fly away’. The rhythm section are Kurt Pietro (drums) who was also in the Blackfoot line-up that played here back in November and Luke Bradshaw (bass) the quartet work well together and waste no time at all getting the sparse crowd to forget the fowl weather outside.

With some great rockin’ numbers like Devil in the bottle’, ‘simple man’ and ‘whiskey, cocaine and blues’ to name just three Skinny Molly create a party atmosphere thanks mainly to Mike Estes’ wry sense of humour. His southern drawl is easy on the ear as he raconteurs gems like ‘this song’s for anyone who’s gone through three divorces and come out with their Harley in tact’ he keeps telling us ‘yaall arrsome’ and thanking us for making the effort to turn up in the extreme weather.

‘Will you all please stand for our national anthem’ announces Mike a split second before cracking into the opening strains of ‘sweet home Alabama’ a true crowd pleaser. Free’s ‘wishing well’ and Steve Earle’s ‘copperhead road’ were two other covers that went down well along with the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd song ‘Freebird’.

After the show I took the time to have a chat with both Jay and Mike mainly about the fate of the band Blackfoot (they’ve both played in that band at some point) it’s a long, sad story and I’m not getting into it here. Anyway back to Skinny Molly and the guys head off to Southampton tomorrow then fly to Europe weather permitting after that. ‘That silver bird is gonna take me away’… GD.