LOUSIANA guitar ace Kenny Wayne Shepherd got his UK tour off to a flying start with a gig at Salisbury City Hall on last night. From the first blistering tunes, Shepherd and the band quickly won the City Hall over. They just got better as the evening went on until their final encore of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" was cheered to the echo.

Their first few numbers were energetic rock songs, but Shepherd's music clearly has deep roots in the Blues. These started to show when they slowed down for a magnificent performance of his own song "Heat of the Sun". A series of numbers by the great blues guitarists followed, mixed in with some songs from his earlier career.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd's guitar is very expressive and his band oozes sheer class. From vocalist Noah Hunt conducting the crowd, through keyboard player Riley Osbourn and bassist Stuart Nelson to legendary drummer Chris Layton holidng everything together they didn't miss a trick. This was a great night of bluesy guitar rock and was well appreciated by the large crowd.

Warm-up duties fell to English guitarist Ben Poole who has been tipped by the blues press as one of Britain's up-and-coming stars. The standout song of his set was his own slow number "Time Might Never Come", featuring a solo which wrought tremendous emotion from his Les Paul.

John Palmer