WHITFORD / ST. HOLMES AT RIDGFIELD, CT – 11/19/2015

It was a long dark and rainy drive to the Ridgefield Playhouse thursday night and I was on my way there to see another show. This evening it was Whitford/St. Holmes.

Whitford / St. Holmes consists of Brad Whitford who is best known for being a guitarist in Aerosmith and Derek St. Holmes who is best known for his vocals and guitar work for Ted Nugent, backing them up is Troy Luccketta, Tesla’s drummer, bassist Chopper Anderson and Buck Johnson on keyboards.

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect that evening. Was it going to be a few songs from their one album from 1981? Or the new album they have been selling only at their tour dates this fall with a bunch of Aerosmith and Ted Nugent thrown in? Or something completely different?
I was in for a surprise.

Brad and Derek came on stage to the cheering and clapping of this crowd and started the evening off with a set of songs off their latest CD “Reunion”. They played the whole new album and it sounded great. Good old fashioned guitar driven arena rock, a departure from the music of today, no screeching guitars, no demonic growls, just good ole fashioned blues influenced rock n roll.

“Shake It”, “Tender is the Night”, “Rock All Day”, “Hot for You”, “Shapes”, “Catch My Fall”, “Hell is on Fire”, “Gotta Keep on Moving” and “Flood of Lies” filled up the first part of their set. They followed those songs up with a handful from the first album, which is titled appropriately enough, “Whitford / St. Holmes”. “Whiskey Women” is now a favorite of mine out of this block of songs.

“Shy Away”, “Every Morning”, “Whiskey Woman” and “Sharpshooter”

Now the fun really began for the people gathered that night with a few songs pulled from the playbooks of their other bands, some Aerosmith and a little Ted Nugent.

St. Holmes’ penned tune of “Hey Baby” off the very first Ted Nugent album, followed by Aerosmith’s “Last Child” with Buck stepping up to the mic and singing, Derek stepped up afterwards and belted out “Train Kept A Rolling” and then moved into “Stranglehold”. The crowd was wild, standing on their feet and singing every word to this block of songs.

This show was not what I expected.

It was A LOT better then I was expecting it to be, far from the fear of this being a glorified cover band playing Aerosmith and Ted Nugent. The fact of the matter is that, I could not hear or feel very much of any influence from their respective bands in the music, don’t get me wrong, you will feel it in one or two of them, but it is not overpowering or drowning out the feel of this new album. Derek’s singing was great, of course a bit different then it was on the Ted Nugent albums of the 70s, but hell that was what 40 years ago? Things change as you get older and for Whitford / St. Holmes, their songwriting has definitely gotten better with age. Brad looked comfortable on a stage probably not even a tenth of the size he is used to when out on the road with Aerosmith.

Unfortunately, their mini tour is about finished, but rumour has it that in 2016 there will be a tour. I can not wait! I will be there again. Merch was affordable fifteen dollar CD’s and at least for the show I was at, they came out right after their show and signed at their merch booth.

Check out the photos from this amazing show: