First through the door came ‘a rattling The Bones of J.R. Jones. The saloon was already starting to fill up quite nicely. Not easy to capture an audience when you’re just a poor lonesome cowboy on stage, but New York-born Jonathan Linaberry does it with verve and passion. Singing, drumming and strumming his ol’ six string all by his lone self. He works through his blues rock fueled desert anthems before a very appreciative audience, even adding in some new work from his upcoming album for the fall, like the song ‘Animals’. With a clap and hum along gospel song that sweeps up the whole floor, he ends this very nice opening act.

The Casino is packed to the brim today. It’s fully sold out and that is of course all due to the main act, The Devil Makes Three, the threesome from Santa Cruz. On tour for the first time again since the pandemic, Peter Bernhard, Cooper McBean and Lucia Torino are as eager for this gig as the rowdy audience. In familiar fashion, they kick it off with ‘The Bullet’ from their self-titled debut. The crowd completely eats it all up, cheering and singing along. You just can’t keep your feet still as the songs steam along like an old locomotive. The three of them are not one-trick ponies, trying their hand at different flavours withing the genre, even tossing in some gospel tunes like ‘Hallelu’ or ’There Be a Jubilee’ or a cover from the godfather of blues Robert Johnson in a not so bluesy, but riled up version of ‘Drunken Hearted Man’. They also add in some live favourites like ‘Paint My Face’  or that love song to whiskey, ‘Old number Seven’. There’s some kind of magic on this interplay between the guitar double bass and the banjo that makes this music timeless.