Reviewed by Paul H Birch, photos by Rich Ward

Hidden in plain sight, this small charming club’s now celebrating its 21st year, and with various acts listed through to the summer it looks set to continue without much ado, but plenty of good service. The beer is good, well priced, and the staff eager to serve without being pushy. The clientele is just as friendly, half-and-half Black Country bred plus those of us from further afield. The venue itself falls towards the end of The Lamp Tavern, a large public house that also offers bed and breakfast. It’s a packed house, mostly seated, around 30 of us lingering round the back or perched at the bar. There’s a slight path to the right hand side, where in a few minutes a tall blond tattooed drummer and long pony-tailed 5 string bass player will walk towards the stage and begin playing. We’d already sussed there’d be no keyboard player tonight, thus Erya Lyytinen is going to have her hands full filling out the sound, just as a guitar starts purring out from the PA.

As I look to my right, and down, there she is; a small lady wearing a big beaming smile as she strums her radio-controlled guitar, heading towards the stage. When she reaches the microphone, I can see she’s got a plectrum affixed to her right thumb, and will later notice more attached to other fingers, and possibly standard plectrum usage too, but what counts right now is the sound’s not overloud, pitched right for the venue, with clear vocals coming through as the launches into ‘Diamonds On The Road’, a very bluesy rendition as will be many of the songs tonight, with much audience clapping involved as additional rhythmic support. There’s a nicely scouring wah-wah slide guitar solo applied near the end of this song, before she starts adding rocky harmonic twists before leading backing into the final chorus.

“Alrighty!” she declares, warmed up, and with a capo placed around the second fret she begins to pick out notes for the riffed-up blues rock of ‘Rocking Chair’. Exuding more wide smiles and throwing poses, not least when she moves left towards her bass player. The song takes a further jazz rock moment before we get another “Alrighty!” from her and she expresses “How wonderful it is to be here, with my power trio!” The drummer hits a beat, and the distorted sounds from her guitar add a decidedly Rory Gallagher feel to ‘Bad Seed’, becoming more of a boogie with a folk-styled vocal delivery come the chorus, that many of the congregation here are singing along to.

I’ve previously felt that it’s Lyytinen’s accent that’s held her back on record, mild prejudices with rock and blues still favouring American inflections after all these decades. However, with her last few studio recordings she’s truly evolved as a vocalist, and here up close the intimacy of her voice and character come across emotionally. While her guitar playing shines when appropriate there’s more chord playing in evidence, to carry the songs across in this paired down format. That stated, we get a most exquisite prog-styled solo before returning back to a boogie conclusion.

“One and a half weeks ago we were in Australia, playing festivals. It was hot and beautiful, then we came to England,” she jokes about our weather, noting how the weekend’s been good only for it to begin raining this evening, then offering the feelgood punchline, “But there is always the sunshine on your smiling faces!” before she and the bass player do a little Shadows-style walking shuffle prior to his soling with a fuzz tone, she joining in as the blues metal riffing of ‘Black Ocean’ takes form, with the big hook line choruses being offered ever more intricate lead playing, then in solo neo-classical touches with added tremolo arm pulling. Applying thumb and forefinger her solo enters a slow blues phase but with added prog-like touches once more, and the odd double hand tap; the rhythm section underpinning this dream-drenched lengthy instrumental section as ever more textures and dynamics are added creatively before the drums lead us back into the song’s climax, and much applause.

“How many of you have been here before, and how many of you are new people?” she asks, and the reply seems to be half and half. That surprises me, albeit even I’ve noticed differing Black Country twangs between those I presumed locals, but it all goes to show the friendly nature of this venue.

“Is it over now?” she sings over broken chords on the jazz torch song intro to ‘Never Really Had You’. It’s quite beautiful in its fragility, then with a power chord and a kick of the drums it turns into a fulsome blues power ballad. It’s perhaps here where you feel the support of a keyboard would fill the sound more, before it all becomes more blues rocking, with jazzy refrains in solo amidst her pained vocal outbursts.

“That was fun!” she declares somewhat surprisingly, continuing, “We’d like to play you a song from our recent album. Would you like to hear it?” The audience do, and we get ‘Run Away’, those jazzy touches continuing to be inserted into this lullaby blues, moving into harder rock nuances with echoed soloing reminiscent of U2’s the Edge.

“Tomorrow is Monday. We love Mondays; it’s a day off for us!” she jokes as single notes build, developing into the racing riff and hard chord rocking as she tells us the story of ‘Last Girl’. Betwixt neo-classical riffing, some rather Beatles-like folk and AOR tinctures, and a big swing chorus that tonight reminds me inexplicably of Men At Work, it’s in her fiery solo we get her more recent melodic power metal nuances surfacing live. With that, the band conclude the first half of their set, as she stands to talk and have a photo taken that I notice she’s got 2” high heels on, and her slightness of frame again astounds me – From photos I’d assumed she was a tall lady. It’s not a disparaging comment, my better-half is similarly framed.

As photographer Mr Ward and I look on, me a little incredulously, winners of a raffle are announced, with three prizes given away, and the jovial banter between stage and crowd taking on ever more Aynuk and Ayli qualities, I wonder what on earth the three Finlanders think of it all, here in the true heartland of England.

Some twenty minutes or so later, the trio return, Lyttinen strapping on a white guitar, asks: “You got some drinks?” before telling us there’s a celebration in order as she sings and plays ‘Happy Birthday’ to an audience member called Gregory. Then, with a blast of feedback, and some decidedly Sabbath-styled slabs of riffage, giving way to echoed broken chords and added melodic notes, they rock into ‘Waiting For The Daylight’ – Dark and atmospheric lyrically, she moves her hips side-to-side as she sings this black widow mantra, before taking on the look of a mad professor as she lays into an eerie echoing solo of techno licks and tremolo sustains, her bass player adding vocals as they come towards its end and he himself trills away on another bass solo, aided by orchestral-styled support from the drummer and more general clapping from the audience. Lyttinen joins in, her guitar dirty in its distortion as she stirs up the funky riff of ‘You Talk Dirty’, the audience continuing to clap, as she once more applies slide guitar, her facial expressions moving between snarls and smiles. The song speeds up, rocking with a Hendrix like wail before, legs astride, she encompasses a whole range of musical colour, the dramatic interjection of drum rolls leading it towards conclusion.

‘Lovers Novels’ follows directly, a hard-nosed sexually charged blues boogie rendition as she continues to shake her hips in time to the music, before thanking everyone for supporting them, and that they have one more song, but it’s a long one as they deliver ‘Wedding Day’. It stomps hard with a strong positive female attitude, the song strong in itself is further empowered by a full bag of creative guitar skills and the varying pace and subgenres enacted upon by the band, whereupon with a great flourish of slide the number reaches a wholesome climax.

Club members whisper into her ear, and they move to the side as a gent proclaims into the mic that he’s now 69 and proud of his Black Country roots, but has enjoyed visiting Lyttinen’s homeland four times in his life thus far, and cries out: “What about our friends from Finland?” and after receiving rowdy applause, asks “Do you want some more?” to which the reply is in the affirmative vernacular of “Ahr!” Yes, the three individuals to the side must be terribly confused, but sense the genuine warmth for them.

“Thankyou so much for having us here, and thank you my guys for playing so well,” the lady who’s the centre of attention calls out as they offer the first of two encores with a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Crosstown Traffic’ – Her slide playing much in evidence, there is further prog-scaled finesse, and even a kazoo solo thrown in for good measure, and then, “One more for you, darlings!” as rocking side to side she plays broken chords to ‘The End Of Music’, her voice powerful and emotional as she begins to sing, “Oh, baby…”. Delivering a devotional blues guitar refrain, more filigrees of guitar filling in between her beautifully sung vocals. The piece extends, incorporating another bass solo, a highly anthemic slide solo with impressive harmonic refrains supersedes it, taking us into Dave Gilmour territory over what could be a Tony Banks inspired chord sequence. Every time you think the solo’s about to reach a climax it takes another turn, her face smiling, presumably both from audience appreciation and slyly knowing what she’s achieving is quite special. Rocking hard it shifts towards power ballad mode as once more she leans into her mic, “Thankyou so much, everybody!” she calls out amid a cluster of notes, held sustaining and a mighty downwards slide to end it all.

A few audience jaws dropped, she smiles to have taken with her rhythm section, expressing her thanks as she walks by us and off for a well-earned rest, for we’ve been most assuredly entertained tonight at a venue that itself needs to be applauded.