TIME BANDITS

Some bands are retro. Some bands are very retro. Dutch trio DeWolff take that to the max in everything they do, looking back for inspiration and feeding it into something new.

- Words: Polly Glass Photos: James Sharrock

The 100 Club feels like a piece of living history. From the jazz artists of its inception in the 1940s to the blues and rock pioneers that filtered in over the coming decades, the people of its past still breathe in its red walls. It adds something to the atmosphere. A residual smokiness from days of chain-smoking hopefuls who became legends.

Under the watchful eyes of Son House, Mick Jagger, Muddy Waters and dozens more picture framed heroes, tonight’s millennial headliners saunter on stage to the old-world crackle of Howlin’ Wolf’s Call Me The Wolf. Chart-toppers in their native Holland but relatively new to the British live scene, this is DeWolff’s first gig here in four years. A lot has happened in that time. Is there an appetite for another bunch of retro revivalists with a Led Zeppelin addiction and an obstinate reverence for all things analogue?

Except DeWolff are not just another bunch of retro revivalists.

Any suspicions of tired, dusty nostalgia porn are blow-torched within seconds. Their gear might be old (like, really old), but there’s heat in those first chords. The matching suits. The looks on their faces. The high kick from 31-year-old frontman Pablo van de Poel. The sense that classic rock can still be exciting.

“Are you ready for some rock’n’roll?!” van de Poel shrieks, jacket open to reveal gold chains and a slim, boyish torso. “Are you ready, for the night traaaaiin!”

It should be laughable, but it’s not. It’s like watching the son of James Brown and Steve Marriott, in full flow, with his two falsetto harmonising bandmates simulating the female backing singers that appear on their latest record.

With that, Night Train canters into life. The room fills with cheers.