Tab Benoit, Tommy Castro & The Painkillers, The Zac Schulze Gang, and Tommy Castro

High energy, great Cajun blues!
Tab is a funny guy and loves joking with and talking to the crowd during his shows, in addition to putting out great music. Tab always sports his patented, brightly colored button down shirt which never fail to impress. Bassist Corey Duplechin is also high energy and really into the music.
All around great entertainment (comedy show and concert). Tab always takes requests and usually tries to play everything the crowd yells out.
He typically tours with excellent opening acts as well; many of which I've grown to love in their own right after being introduced to their music at a Tab show.

Tommy Castro has such an amazing voice, the painkillers just highlight this with their awesome instrument playing and easy going image!

Having multiple friends has it own pros and cons, many love the same music as you while many do not and there is no way around this as everybodies taste differs, but sometimes and I say this strongly, sometimes your tastes align and you stumble upon pure greatness! this is exactly what happened!
A friend and I both loving blues music and soul heard of an artist called Tommy Castro and we heard he would be performing so we did what all music lovers did and thought we should give this a go, what is the worst that could happen? Well from that day I have never looked back!

Tommy Castro and the painkillers live are so amazing! When performing 'Nasty Habbits' you truly understood how much chemistry the band had playing together! With Tommy approaching each of them and having a little moment, while the audience jumped and danced and pranced and cheered on as the musician had a solo for himself it was truly superb!
I really got into the band and I have been a fan ever since, nothing will be changing that in the foreseeable future!

These guys are skilled and need to be on a pedestal!

Monday 4th December. Tommy Castro & the Painkillers.100 Club, London. It’s a chilly Monday night in early December so what better way to blow away the cold than with a suitcase full of the blues. It’s not the laid back picking kind of blues but the hard rockin, soulful kind of blues. We’re at the iconic 100 Club that’s seen its fair share of blues acts over the years and it’s good to see some decent beer at a venue although it still has that annoying large pillar right in the middle at the front of the stage.

It’s fair to say that Tommy Castro has been round the block a few times and he’s all the better for it. A late bloomer in terms of recorded output, the last 15 years or so has seen him release some fine albums including this year’s great ‘Stompin Ground’ with some fine horns supplementing the traditional blues base.

Tonight Tommy is supported by the Painkillers, Bowen Brown on drums, Randy McDonald on bass and the excellent Mike Emerson on keys who provides a superb rounded sound supporting the pounding rhythm section.

We have tracks from the new album, some oldies and some great blues covers and Tommy gets into his stride right from the off on his bespoke Delaney ‘Castrocaster’ guitar. An hour in the band welcome their ‘driver’ on stage who just happens to be a certain Aynsley Lister. He remains on stage for the rest of the set and the dual axe attack and interplay is superb with the bonus of Lister taking lead vocals on a couple of numbers too.

The band are all on top form and clearly have a good time. A special mention to one guy in the audience whose enthusiasm was contagious and should hire himself out as a one man crowd on his own.

It’s a breathless nearly two hour set and these Painkillers are the perfect antidote to the cold outside.

Till the next time, keep on blues rockin y’all