Another throwback moment to early 2009 and another night advertised as a blues night but with The Fuzzey Group we were in for something more, along with Alderney punk-blues trio Rawcuz Crowzz featuring a young Robert J. Hunter.

Though tonight was dubbed the Blues Cruise, traditional blues wasn’t really order of the day as we were treated to an appearance by alternative noise makers The Fuzzey Group and Alderney’s Rawcuz Crowzz.

The Fuzzey Group kicked off the evening’s live music with their unique blend of sounds. The band’s epic instrumentation was once again almost impossible to classify with rock, jazz and even dance beats fusing together to make a fascinating whole.

Each tune seemed to start out with Brett Stewart, for want of a better word, messing about on the drums. Over this came the keyboards and occasional saxophone of Colin Falla and the guitar of Martin Purvis.

All three performer’s instruments took turns coming to the top of the mix and I was left thinking any of them would have been fascinating solo but the combination of all three worked to create something even better.

The band seemed to be linked almost telepathically as they seamlessly moved from one passage of music to another with even the dropping of drumsticks being worked into the tunes.

The thing that really struck me about The Fuzzey Group’s performance is how they manage to keep a room of people interested without the need for lyrics or familiar tunes and that no matter how many times I see them I continue to find different fascinating things in their sounds.

Hot off the heels of a successful outing at the Mermaid Tavern in Sark the night before Alderney’s ‘nu-blues’ pioneers Rawcuz Crowzz took to the stage as headliners tonight.

Combining punk and blues the band have, in the past, put in successful and popular performances in Guernsey, tonight however their set seemed destined to not hit such previous heights.

From the off the band were contending with sound issues which effected both the sound on stage for the band and off for the crowd, also throughout the set the amount of distortion on the guitar sound often left it causing confusion among many in attendance.

Despite these issues the band did their best with Derrick Williams harmonica playing remaining the band’s greatest asset as was shown by the highlight of their set, Train Song.

Despite this the band’s style and spirit seemed to be successful tonight, I heard one member of the audience describe them as sounding like “Crass trying to play the blues”.

While this may have not been the Crowzz best outing, it was attended by representatives of both the Greenman Chaos Weekend and Vale Earth Fair who were scouting for bands to play their festivals over the summer, so hopefully this won’t be the last we see of the Crowzz on our shores.