It’s twelve years since Eric Sardinas last set foot on the Harmonie stage. He played such a blinder of a set then that I even bought a t-shirt. ‘Respect Tradition’ it says on the back and Sardinas doesn’t just respect tradition, he dusts it off and turns it up to 10 on a rusty looking resonator guitar that looks like it was dug up at the crossroads right after midnight. If you like your music restful and sweetly melodic, you’re in the wrong concert hall tonight my friend. If however you like it rough around the edges and neat like a strong glass of bourbon, this might just be heaven.
What with Danny Bryant and Blues Caravan only last week, the familiar audience faces that Harmonie relies on for these shows are mainly still present but the more casual blues rockers seem a bit thinner on the ground. Having said that there are enough people inside to create an atmosphere helped by the balcony being closed off.
The smaller audience from his last visit isn’t just down to the competition, but also down to Sardinas himself. He’s pretty much gone to ground since 2014’s ‘Boomerang’ CD and the only update I had since then was the sad news of bassman Levell Price’s death in 2022 through a road traffic accident. Try to find out via the official Eric Sardinas website and it leads to a dead-end unless you’re looking for an online casino. There has been a new CD released in 2023, ‘Midnight Junction’, but the merchandise desk surprisingly doesn’t have any copies. All Facebook tells me is that there has recently been some European touring that ends with tonight’s Endenich gig. It’s pretty hard to go ‘underground’ in the 21st Century’s all-seeing socialmedia World – but Eric Sardinas has done a pretty good job.
Looking around the stage on arrival I can see nothing seems to have changed there since 2014. There’s no rack full of back-up guitars. There’s only one foot-pedal. Six pedals over by the bass look like overkill in comparison. When Sardinas finally hits the stage soon after 8 pm he has a further steel resonator in hand, and there is one noticable change straight away – a swash-buckling Captain Hook style moustache. Otherwise it’s business as usual: Stetson hat? check. feather in hat? check. Snakeskin boots? check. one drummer? check. one bassist? check. All present and correct – let the music begin.
Jason Langley (Mike Zito Band amongst others) lays down a funky bass sound, and Mario Dawson on drums gives the music plenty of clout. It was for me a slight criticism in my 2014 review that the band was louder than they needed to be and it still rings true in 2026. After getting some pictures I found a spot further back in the hall, away from the monitors, where the volume and mix seemed better.
Musically not too much has changed outside of the funkier bass lines. Sardinas is still cranking out a mastercourse in slide guitar on his resonator. He is still King of the bottleneck, or‘Preaching Stick’ as he calls it, which seems appropriate since it’s what we were all praying for – that he still had THAT magic. Rest assured that Eric Sardinas definitely still has a passion for the Blues. His respect for tradition shows in the choice of cover material – going for hell or glory on Muddy Waters’‘Can’t be satisfied’ and‘I Wonder Who’, the latter getting shouts of ‘Rory!!!’ from the audience. What would Muddy have made of his tunes tonight blasting out of Eric Sardinas’ speakers I wonder? He probably thought his sound was getting plenty loud enough when he and Johnny Winter put out ‘Electric Mud’ in 1975.
It was good to hear some‘oldies’ from the Eric Sardinas back-catalogue too, especially one of my favourites ‘Get Down To Whisky’ with its rolling, pompous swagger. ‘8 Going South’ from 2001 release ‘Devil’s Train’ (yes, 21 years ago!) was another welcome blast of heavy-slide heaven, and also welcome for being about as close as the evening does to a quiet number. We only ever get that close again when Jason Langley takes a long but very enjoyable bass solo that incorporates a rather nifty and funked up bit of’99 Luftballons’.
‘Backdoor Man’ finishes the evening in a raunchy and sweaty style, proving those who kept the faith that Eric Sardinas was still a force to reckon with on a beaten up Resonator were right. There’s an old Vintage Guitar magazine interview that maybe explains the volume at shows, as Eric explains that he doesn’t use too many pedals etc: “I work off the cone and use my Volume as a tone control. Whatever the guitar gives me, I give it back”.
Maybe it’s the fierceness of those resonators and the voice he puts out over them, but I feel a bit nervous speaking to Eric after the show. I wanted to know what he’d been up to the last twelve years. “I’ve been making music” he smiles back unrevealingly, and then, as I’m about to leave, he shakes my hand and thanks me so much for coming this evening. The sincerity in his voice is unmistakable. Don’t believe the Captain Hook moustache – the only hooks here belong to great blues tunes. I’m left feeling that Eric Sardinas is on his way back from something – and even if I don’t know what, I’m glad he’s back.
