Review by Paul H Birch, Photos by Rich Ward.

What’s not to love about The Lamp Tavern? Great little venue, friendly bar staff, and similarly amiable clientele, oh, and the Bathams ale. My roots are in the Black Country, and I feel safe and warm here, and its out the way for me, but I’m drawn to it, and most often to see Erja Lyytinen.

“Welcome to the Lamp Tavern Live… Tonight we’ve got Finland’s queen of the slide guitar Erya Lyytinen… Give her and her band a big welcome!” 

We look to our right and three figures walk down towards the stage, her regular five string bass player and a new drummer (both of whose names are given but whatever I wrote down in the dark is undecipherable, so apologise), followed by the diminutive figure of Erya Lyytinen, guitar in hand. “Hello, how are you doing, Dudley?” she asks as they reach their  stage positions. “I’m so glad to be starting my tour here – We always have a great time! And with that they’re off and running with ‘Ball & Chain’ a capo set  down at third fret on her shiny blue guitar as she  knocks out slide licks picked out by a thumb plectrum.

The chorus hooks us in and the second verse comes across heavier with her bass player singing along too. The lady’s in a devilish mood tonight, those who’ve come here for the blues will be finding she’s playing up her more rockier – if not metalish – influences tonight, not least the sticking-out of her tongue right now as plays a particularly fiendish breakout before playing off to her bass player visually. There’s also lots of raised arm, finger pointing tonight, albeit no devil’s horn signs. Come the next chorus the audience are clapping along and the mood is set for the rest of the evening.

Jumping around the stage, broken chords churning away for ‘Smell The Roses’ the audience keeps clapping as the music moves between brazen hard rocking and dreamier psychedelic almost poppier sections. Her bass player grinding away deeper and doubling up the tempo as she solos wah-wah style, alongside a voice that’s currently in operatic metal mode. All is going well. 

“For the next song, it’s a message to all my exes!” she declares laughing away as ‘Going To Hell’ shifts from Satriani-styled shredding into a doom blues waltz. There’s a neo-classical tone with added emotionally tone blues to her solo but it’s again her voice that keeps capturing one’s attention – It’s wide ranging, expressive, and full powered, pretty much all night long.

After sipping from a bottle of water she relates how this is her 50th Anniversary Tour and informs us that she treated herself to the Kramer guitar she now cradles in her hands. Very 80s with its beak-style headstock and very much a symbol of those flash hard rock six stringers of the day, and when one listens back to recent studios albums where on some songs she’s performing Iron Maiden styled solos over fusion influenced arrangements you can see why she would consider this a much-need tool in her musical armoury.

Next we’re entreated to ‘Hard As Stone’ that for all its inherent Black Sabbath song structure has a stronger blues flavour that come the solo goes full-on Cream-like before moving into semi-Maiden mode as she continues to solo even as the chorus comes back in, legs astride, right foot tapping the floor manically in rhythm –  Another song that’s dark in nature despite the exuberant enthusiastic nature of its singer.

With the drummer setting out a beat the crowd begin to clap in tempo as in good spirits she tells us another story, albeit one we’re now familiar with here at The Lamp; it’s about how she likes hiking trips and was recently on one the length of which most of us here would find many an excuse not to do. Such a venture was the inspiration for her next song, ‘Dragonfly’ – It comes across with a heavy chordal groove, and it’s confusing to try and work out the various chord inversions on this and many of the others numbers she performs – The shapes her left hand forms aren’t obvious and the sounds they create embellish the sound quite uniquely at times. This piece dispatches itself in an echoed progressive manner,  jazzy chords tinker in and out, there’s double tapping across the fretboard with her smiling, looking down at her fingers dancing across the fretboard; then a more serious expression  as she swoops down towards the bridge picking out varying clusters of notes to create choice phrases before returning to the microphone screaming. The song finished,  plaintively she states: “I like hiking. I like forests.” before uttering the guttural roar: This is… ‘One Thing I Won’t Change’!”

Deep funky bass is illicited with more crowd clapping. It’s blues rock but with an afterbite of vintage Uli Roth -era Scorpions about it, and the Kramer in her hands delivers ample more double tapping before a big drum roll that concludes a somewhat epic if not exhausting rendition of the number.

Then it’s off for a “beer break for around 20 minutes” according to the lady celebrating her 50th anniversary tour. While we sup and chat during the interval I look across at the Lamp’s t-shirts on offer, emblazoned as they are with the venue’s Black Country catchphrase: “Dun Yo Want Sum Moor?” More importantly, there’ll be a raffle soon, and I purposely paid cash at the bar to get some coins, so some lucky beggar’s going to be going home with either a bee hive or a choice of bottles of wine! Seriously, as our masters of ceremony on stage dipping into the hat explain, the raffles are important they go towards the upkeep of the club’s facilities and towards paying the bands. Next time I’ll ensure I have notes to offer.

“Please welcome back our Erja again!” calls out the announcer, thus stating that she plays this venue so regularly they’ve claimed her on a first name basis. That’s a high honour indeed. My bloodline stretches back here hundreds of years and I still feel I’m only allowed here in the shires if I’m on good behaviour. But I am necking Bathams tonight so I’m going through the initiation ceremony well.

The trio start their second set with ‘Abyss’, another where there’s a metallic riff and some sharp chopping away at chords before a discordant rocking lullaby with a dark menace underlying it ensues even before she sings. Come the song’s solo there’s speedy blues, great pulls on a tremelo arm then long sustained notes between more serious licks, all of which impresses. “My power trio!” she exclaims proudly waving back at her rhythm section as dutiful applause is given, me I just wish I could type their names clearly. It also occurs to me I’ve been in her direct vision from here at the back leaning against the bar all night, but somehow my ugly mug’s not put her off. But onto the music.

‘Bird’ is next and comes across as 12 bar melodic rock ‘n roll , with some more double tapping coming into play solo time.  With ‘Wings To Fly’ there’s a touch of The Beatles,  Cream in a studio setting, but also folk rock about it while getting more epically progressive rock like, drums driving it along as chords changes – The guitar evoking seagull like cries, her voice powerful, clear and operatic once more.

There’s a brief “Thank you, very much!” and the bass player starts soloing, effects driven it develops with a meaty Geezer Butler groove to it. “Oh, yeah!” the lady with the guitar calls out, arm raised aloft before digging into a pumping and raunchy ‘You Talk Dirty’  – Now lyrically, this may well be a putdown about a guy coming onto her but the music is anything but. She and her bass player turn side on, throwing shapes towards each other, before she returns to the mic and emita a howling operatic scream prior to a particularly creative guitar solo, the pace fastening from all three, before there’s an almost Status Quo boogie stance from her and the bass player, finally getting up on the drum riser as they proceed to surge towards the song’s climax.

Strapping on a pink guitar with a capo set at second fret she asks once more, “So, how we doing?” prior to launching into ‘Stoney Creek’, her foot on the drum riser by the time she eventually brings the song to an end following another atmospheric solo. 

“It has been a wonderful first night here with you. Thank you for coming!” she expresses, “We have one more song to play for you, from the Smell The Rose album – It’s been known to go on for 10-18 minutes you know, so we’ll see if we’ve still got the time before they turn out the lights!” She then proceeds to dance about the stage for some hard rocking boogie, until her right leg stomps the floor and she begins to sing ‘Wedding Day’, frenzied slide work appearing  after the second verse. Then following more jumping around there’s some fretboard frenzy alongside harmonics and her foot on that drum riser again for a great big dirty avalanche of feedback, after blues chording a choice sonic pallette issues and her drummer showing no signs of energy flagging beefs things up as they launch into the opening bars of Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’  until with two fingers raised on the hand of her raised right arm she sustains a note before going into a pretty section that could well be from South Pacific before forming a heart shape between her hands and calling out “L’amour!” The crowd is clapping, the band rocking, no end seemingly in sight,  then with one last blast of sound she jumps off the drum riser, declaring “Dudley, thank you! – That was so much fun!” as all three bow.

This being the Lamp Tavern the obligatory question goes out: “Dun Yo Want Sum Moor?” and following the crowd’s reply, its follow up line: “Can you do one more, Erya?” She can and tonight’s encore is ‘The Ring’  – A rendition that’s delivered with aplomb, hitting us like a Rory Gallagher number dropped in a warm bath of Mr Big, with flourishes and asides aplenty musically and lots of expressive body language to boot  – A fist pumping delivery that gets your mojo going and ends far too soon, despite the late night, then with a “Hope to see you soon!” they’re off.

Those who came to Erya Lyytinen and were taken with her Elmore James influences, could be taken aback by the hard rocking and progressive elements hinted at on recent records and given a much fuller life here tonight, though none present this evening take such purist blues views. Indeed, in hindsight, the set list itself is is interesting, appearing to have been created to tell an overall arc of a story. One we’ve very much been satisfied by.

Set 1 List:
Ball And Chain
Smell The Roses
Going To Hell
Hard As Stone
Dragonfly
One Thing I Won’t Change

Set 2 List:
Abyss
Bird
Wings To Fly
You Talk Dirty
Stoney Creek
Wedding Day

Encore:
The Ring