BottleRock: This was the most impressive set of music we heard at festival
Haven't listened to Christone "Kingfish" Ingram yet? We highly recommend that you correct that situation immediately.
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram had just blazed through an amazing version of the Michael Burks number “Empty Promises” when he decided an apology was in order.
“I want to apologize for all those notes I played,” the 24-year-old vocalist-guitarist said to the awestruck crowd on Sunday (May 27) at BottleRock Napa Valley. “My bad.”
Far from it, actually.
There wasn’t a single thing about Ingram’s hour-long set on the Allianz Stage that could be described as bad — unless, of course, one is using the word as a slang term for really, incredibly, phenomenally good. Then the term definitely fits.
Either way, the point is that Ingram put on a show that lived up to all the advance hype, as the Clarksdale, Mississippi native underscored all the reasons why he’s considered to already be one of the greatest talents in the entire blues genre.
His canyon-deep voice was mesmerizing and his guitar work was simply out of this world, hitting heights that simply have seldom been reached by others. He made every note matter and each song was performed with such mighty conviction, resulting in the single most impressive set of music this critic saw during the three-day BottleRock Napa Valley festival.
Opening with a blistering take on “She Calls Me Kingfish,” Ingram would devote the lion’s share of the night to his latest album, “662,” which borrows its title from the area code of the artist’s native Clarksdale. Four of the seven tracks featured in the set hailed from that acclaimed sophomore release, which won the Grammy Award for best contemporary blues album in 2022.
Playing a purple and black Fender, and wearing a T-shirt, jean shorts and white sneakers, Ingram continued with a massive version of “Fresh Out” — one of two songs performed from his Grammy-nominated debut, 2019’s “Kingfish” — and then slowed things down a bit for a cutting take on the latest album’s “Another Life Goes By.”
“Where does hate come from and how can we make it stop?” he sang with conviction. “We got to make some changes, before somebody else gets shot. We need to pay attention to the helpless cries. We need to stop the madness, before another life goes by.”
The star of the show then left the stage to his excellent band — consisting of D’Vibes on keys, Paul Rogers on bass and Chris Black on drums — and made his way out deep into the crowd, blazing through an epic guitar part on “Not Gonna Lie” while surrounded by joyous fans taking videos on their smartphones.
He’d return to the stage and his bandmates for “Outside of this Town” and then closed the show with the title track from “662.”
Ingram then took out a smartphone himself and took some pictures/videos to document the large crowd that had turned out to see him perform.
He’d better get used to these kinds of turnouts.
Ingram was also scheduled to perform a sold-out show on Monday at HopMonk Tavern Novato, which was a terrific booking by promoter KC Turner.
Other highlights from the closing day of the 2023 BottleRock included hip-hop titans Wu-Tang Clan, who had the crowd bouncing along to such classics as “C.R.E.A.M.” and “Protect Ya Neck” at the Verizon Stage. (Members of Wu-Tang Clan members were also scheduled to appear with fellow hip-hop star Warren G, baker Kassem, the Voltaggio Brothers and host Liam “Foodie Chap” Mayclem for a cooking demonstration earlier in the day on the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage.)
Also, Sheryl Crow — one of the inductees into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2023 — was in top form as she rolled through such fan favorites as “My Favorite Mistake,” “Soak Up the Sun” and, best of all, “All I Wanna Do” on the big JaM Cellars Stage.
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram setlist:
1, “She Calls Me Kingfish”
2, “Fresh Out”
3, “Another Life Goes By”
4, “Empty Promises”
5, “Not Gonna Lie”
6, “Outside of This Town”
7, “662”
