No Sinner – Black Heart, London – 25-11-2013

Tonight’s gig was one I’d been really looking forward to since I first listened to the band’s single “Boo hoo hoo”.  More recently I’ve been listening to their forthcoming album (also called Boo Hoo Hoo) which has just been released in Germany and comes out in the UK in January.  In case you haven’t heard of No Sinner yet, they’re a blues-rock band from Vancouver, Canada, and frontwoman Colleen Rennison has one hell of a voice.  As a result I was really loooking forward to seeing if they’d sound as good live as they do on the album.

The Black Heart in Camden was very busy by the time the band came on stage at 9pm, and being a small room the temperature was already rising rapidly. They kicked off with an excellent cover of Nina Simone’s “Work song” which really got things off to a great start.  The strong guitar riffs  and the powerful vocals really sounded good.  The eight song set flew by and included mainly songs from the album including “Rise up”, “Runnin” and “Devil on my back”.  Colleen’s vocals really are something special and help the band stand out from the crowd.  The rest of the band are all great musicians too and put in a strong performance, but it’s Colleen that is the centre of attention tonight.
It’s great Blues-rock, but songs such as “Rise up” also have a gospel feel to them, hinting at the wide range of influences the band draws on.
After they end the set, the crowd are quick to demand another song, and the band are happy to oblige with a two song encore – “If anything” and “All woman”.

The band may have been playing their first UK show, with press making up a sizeable part of the crowd, but they got a great reception, and are bound to win a lot of new fans as they tour Germany supporting one of the few singers who can outdo Colleeen – the amazing Beth Hart.
I certainly hope that No Sinner come back to the UK for more dates in 2014as this is a band that’s going to get a lot bigger in the next year or two.
Setlist:

Work song
Wait
Devil on my back
Leadfeet
Rise up
Runnin’
Saturday night
Boo hoo hoo

If anything
All woman