Gig Review: Valentine’s Day Soul Sessions at The Night Owl in Birmingham

It’s been a busy time for me with me working on the finishing touches for my upcoming book Crime of the Century and general housewife stuff. So I haven’t had much time or money to go to a gig, but when I saw that my friend Janique’s band, Not Soup were playing in Birmingham, which is just a short train ride away, I was like perfect, that’s Valentine’s Day plans sorted!

Before the gig I went to Cafe Soya, which is a Chinese restaurant with an excellent vegan menu. According to some locals I spoke to, they said it’s the best of the best restaurants to go to for a vegetarian or vegan. I’ve gone a couple times before in the past and it’s a favourite. I’m always down for Chinese food and when it’s vegan, I’m in heaven! What I usually do when I get Chinese food is order family style, that’s the only way in my opinion because I can’t decide what to have. So my husband and I split a vegetable fried rice and I want to say a garlic chilli mock beef dish. It was great! I had a chocolate shake and my husband had chocolate boba (which can be made vegan!). Only downside is that it’s cash only, but the food’s so great that I don’t care if I have to schlep all the way to a bank machine.

Soul Sessions Brum is a series of community events in Birmingham focused around soul music run by Zen Finn and they have events a couple times a month, but the gigs aren’t just limited to that as you’ll see in this review.

This show was a mix of music from acoustic guitar music by Brendan Freeman, who did a set of songs that he described as all based on true stories, with an anti-war song in the mix and a song he did for a homeless outreach charity called “This Is Possible”

There was also some 90s style R&B done by siblings Odysshey and OD The Tourist – they both did mostly original songs with one cover each.

House band Collective Sleep who do jazz fusion with a lot of great guitar solos – lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Casiopea and Masayoshi Takanaka and their music reminds me a bit of that and I hear a bit of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain in their sound.

Last but certainly not least, Not Soup – this Birmingham based band were phenomenal – Janique has great stage presence and a powerful voice and the music was great – if you’re a fan of Yes, Rush, King Crimson, Steven Wilson, and Frank Zappa, you’ll love Not Soup.

Here are some photos from the gig:

Loved this blog post and want to support and see more? Donate to The Diversity of Classic Rock on Patreon or Paypal or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, click the follow button on my website, leave a nice comment, send your music or classic rock related books for review, or donate your art and writing talents to the blog. Thank you for the support!