Poison Whiskey

Bournemouth Rock Cafe

In the deep South of England a band made up of four dark tortured souls found themselves thrown together after a miraculous twist of fate. Poison Whiskey’s name was taken from the Lynyrd Skynyrd song of the same and their aim is to bring some serious Blues into the lives of Dorset’s music loving folk.

For now they have just decided to borrow favourite songs from their own record collection – at the moment it is unclear as to whether they will write any original material together. If they did it certainly would be an exciting proposition. The band played their first full gig at Chaplin’s Cellar bar with a only a few other low key appearances at various open mic nights under their belts.

Tonight’s gig is at the Bournemouth Rock Cafe formerly the Bournebeat Hotel. A place where musical memories are bought to life and where new musical memories are made. A place where the walls are adorned with copious amounts of local rock and pop memorabilia. You can spend hours just wandering around looking at it all…..and I did but back to the gig!!

The four piece band made up of Sarge on vocals, Paolo on guitar, Terry on percussion and Nacho Jase on Bass have drawn a nice crowd of exited people; all who want their own taste of “Poison Whiskey”. The band kick off at 9pm with a batch of songs, all which have a slightly dark and sinister overtone to them. There are classic numbers like “Sympathy For The Devil”, “Backdoor Man” and “Hoochie Coochie Man”; all given the Poison Whiskey treatment. It is a very simple set-up that mixes acoustic and electric guitars with a Cajon, backed by Sarge’s more than capable fine vocal skills.

Poison Whiskey 1–2–3–4

The audience were a little reserved during the 1st set but all this soon changed when the band came back after a few well earned pints for the second set. The tempo was increased and people were soon up dancing to more great songs like The Black Crow’s “Hard To Handle”, and Otis Redding’s “Dock Of The Bay” which included some nice audience participation in the form of whistling. The evening came to a close with the ever popular “Sweet Home Alabama”, the audience were not satisfied and demanded more.

The band dutifully returned with a sterling version of the Jimi Hendrix classic “Hey Joe” which included some excellent guitar work from Paolo, rounding off a great evening of music. These four quality experienced musicians are certainly on to something here, recapturing the fine Blues/Rock music of the 70’s. If this is your thing you could do no better than check them out on their next live outing in a venue near you very soon.

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