Twist And Shake With The Detroit Cobras In Chelsea

Even if you have a bit of knowledge about London and it’s surroundings you probably do not expect to find a concert venue under a football ground in Chelsea. However, last Sunday, we went to Stamford Bridge to watch a rock’n’roll show at the amazing venue Under The Bridge. Who was on that night? No one less than the mighty Detroit Cobras, who just flew to Europe for three gigs and stopped in London before returning home. And the place is sold-out and no wonder it is their first UK show in 14 years!

If you were expecting a lazy Sunday night in “posh” London, then you would be sadly mistaken. Nothing of that sort happens with the Detroit Cobras! As singer Rachel Nagy likes to tell the audience “you’re going to dance and you will have fun”. And right she was, as no one could help but shaking and twisting after the first notes started playing!

The warm-up was given by The Masonics, already well-known in the London garage scene. This rock’n’roll mix of Bo Diddley and The Kinks set the tone for the evening quite quickly and got us all really excited for the headliners.

Then the Detroit Cobras came on stage with a bang! At this point, Under The Bridge was fully packed and the crowd was buzzing. The band lived up to our expectations and delivered an energetic, cheeky and fantastic performance.

Rachel’s “Joplinesque” sexy wails, her drunk and sassy attitude lead the rest of the band in playing their all-times classics through to the end of a flawless set that left us all sweaty and begging for more.

Opening with Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand and going from hit to hit, serving us with tunes like South Bamalama, Putty (In Your Hands) and Weak Spot, we were gifted by a great mix of rock and danceable tunes but were also given some time to cuddle up with our partners, friends, neighbours during a few slower, sexy numbers.

The whole band was on fire that night, and they had so much energy to share with the fans! Rachel‘s voice was accompanied by Mary Ramirez‘s recognisable guitar playing. Surrounded by some of Motown’s finest session and touring musicians, The Detroit Cobras came, saw and conquered London!

It was at that point that the band declared they needed an extra back-up singer to help them with Ya Ya Ya and invited Ian on stage. Ian was obviously a number one fan and he proved it!

Concluding the same way they started the show, the band played their last few songs to an ecstatic pack of fans, old and new and we did not need much convincing this was the best rock’n’roll gig we’ve seen this year.