The Wandering Hearts - Wandering all over out hearts!!!

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Opening their hearts out to Bath

The Wandering Hearts are at their heart (see what I did there) a Country band, but you can leave your spurs and line dancing and they offer way more than that and certainly do not fit into what many people may think of the genre. They have been growing a steady fan base from a packed out Bristol Louisiana back in February to a 90% full Komedia in Bath, that is over doubling it in under a year and without the mainstream coverage that country gets.

The core band consists of two men and two women who as well as writing the amazing songs are also very good at harmonising, so the country ABBA if you like. For this tour they are joined by a double bass player and a live drummer, both of who really add to the sound. You can tell they are used to their original set up as the stage set is a large carpet and four spotlights, so I was not sure if to expect Aladdin or an air raid initially.

For the first few songs they did not acknowledge their new members,  but I think it was first night nerves and being used to the original set up as they certainly got the deserved recognition by the end, I wonder how long they have to be members before they get The Wandering Hearts branded water bottles which the originals had. More importantly though is the musical show, and first night nerves or not you could not tell with the music which seemed flawless all night.

The music has a real edge to it whether they were doing very upbeat numbers such as ‘Rattle’ to the more emotional numbers such as ‘Wish I Could’ they just hold the stage throughout and despite not having a large number of “hits” had the audience engrossed into every song. For ‘Burning Bridges’ they sang acapella at the front of the stage, with nowhere to hide they pulled it off perfectly.

All too soon the set came to end with an Elvis cover initially with ‘The Wonder of You’, and then ending the set on a real barn stomper with ‘Devil’ which had everybody on their feet. I started by saying they are country band, they are way more than that in reality with elements of Folk, Rock and more in there to create a great tune rather than a pigeon holed creation. I have been honoured to see them twice now and look forward to the next time already, I am sure the venue will need to be bigger again.

Review by Jon Cooper and Photo's by Steve Owen

Check Out! the Video for 'Devil' Below...