Danny & The Champions of the World - Los Campeones en Vivo (2021)

Recorded in the mountains of Asturias in Spain in the summer of 2018, Los Campeones En Vivo, a double live CD, perfectly demonstrates what a powerful live force Danny and the Champions of the World are, the set opening with the circling electric guitars and muted drums building the tension for a near nine-minute Let The Water Wash Over You (Don’t You Know) before the growly vocals arrive two minutes in, the number closing with an equally extended play out. With a roll of drums and guitar squall it leads straight into another from Brilliant Light, the steady driving rhythm of the six-minute Consider Me underscoring the band’s Southern rock influences with echoes that range from Skynyrd to Marshall Tucker.

Continuing to mine their latest album at that time, the swaggering Southern soul Never In The Moment is more concise but no less muscular before they turn to earlier material with the pedal steel coloured Americana soul stylings of This Is Not A Love Song from What Kind Of Love then whooping it up as the crowd friendly more countrified Springsteen-like title track strut from Stay True before returning to Brilliant Light and another lengthy work out in the swaggering Waiting For The Right Time.

The set features six further selections from that album, a steady drum thump laying down the beat for the crashing guitar chords and piano of Coley Point while bass, slide, drums and saloon piano underpin the throatily sung boogie blues of Everything We Need, conjuring images of the crowd swaying along en masse. The third adds an extra two minutes, mostly the guitar and keys intro, to Gotta Get Things Right In My Life while Remember Me becomes an extended twelve-minute jam that, the crowd clapping along, introduces the band in turn, the line up featuring new keyboards recruit Thomas Collison and a guitar solo from Paul Lush. It’s Just A Game (That We Were Playing) is another good-time number with an air of Sam Cooke while the final pick and the penultimate track, is another uptempo one, the funky boogie, Long Distance Tears driven along by Steve Brooke’s pounding drums.

The material in the rest of the set is all equally longer than the recorded versions, reaching back to 2011’s Hearts & Arrows for the slow burn anthemic Brothers In The Night and the barrelling along air-punching Every Beat Of My Heart, returning to What Kind Of Love and doubling the playing time of Clear Water that interpolates The Tams 1970 Northern Soul hit Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy as if it might have been an outtake from Rod’s Atlantic Crossing.

The first of the remaining two numbers in the final stretch returns to Stay True for the soulful swagger of the inspirational, uplifting (Never Stop Building) That Old Space Rocket, the seven-minute set-closer being the oldest number, dating back to 2010’s Streets Of Our Time to go out on a seething crowd sway-along high for Restless Feet as, riding Lush’s guitar, it builds to the big crescendo. Though not a criticism, there’s always been a sense of a tasteful restraint to the studio albums but unleashed on stage with their raspy vocals and heartland rock and soul, they’re like a power station on steroids.