On April 9, the Two Tours Collide tour stopped at the Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, Florida, for a night celebrating guitar mastery and blues roots. For two months, Samantha Fish’s Paper Doll Tour and Tab Benoit’s I Heart Thunder Tour combine for co-headlining shows without an opener. The show itself is a collision of complementary styles.
Samantha Fish started the show, backed by drummer Jamie Douglass, Mickey Finn on keyboards, and bassist Ron Johnson. The band played a lively rock-and-roll set rooted in blues and country. Fish sang in a soulful twang while ripping through licks on an impressive collection of guitars, everything from strats to hollowbodies to a hand-crafted cigar box guitar.
As the only guitarist in the band, Fish played a combination of lead and rhythm guitar, often playing lead fills within chord shapes or between chord changes. In songs like the rockers “Better Be Lonely” and “Lose You,” she tore through aggressive rock rhythms and blazing solos.
Fish’s guitar technique varied from song to song, sometimes finger-picking, sometimes playing slide, and others using a more traditional rock style. She used two microphones, one clean and the other distorted, for the more aggressive moments, and performed with a charisma that drew in the intimate theater crowd.
“Dream Girl” started as a soft, slow ballad, with Fish’s alluring croon over clean, bluesy guitar licks. As the song progressed, it slowly built toward a climactic guitar solo that started soft and silky and ended with distorted histrionics.
The highlight of the show was Fish’s rendition of “Bulletproof.” Armed with her unique cigar box guitar, Fish ripped through a series of slide guitar riffs and blistering solos while belting the lyrics on her distorted mic. “You guys like that piece of shit little guitar, huh?” Fish asked after the strong crowd reaction. “I can’t keep it in tune, and it’s almost dead, but it’s your favorite one.”
On a cover of Neil Young’s “Don’t Let it Bring You Down,” Fish started the song on an acoustic guitar before switching to an SG for the more aggressive second half. Fish and the band then closed the show with a fiery version of the blues-rocker “Black Wind Howlin’.”
Unlike the hybrid of rock, blues, and country that made up Samantha Fish’s set, Tab Benoit’s performance was straight-up blues. The Louisiana native played swampy Delta blues with an added Stevie Ray Vaughan influence. Benoit was backed by a drummer and Cory Duplechin on bass.
All of the traditional blues staples were there, from the call-and-response structures to the standard blues scales. Though this traditional approach to the blues gets repetitive, Benoit’s technical precision made up for it.
Benoit sang with a gritty, soulful voice that recalled Otis Redding, whether belting or whispering in velvety vibrato. On the blues stomp “Medicine,” Benoit belted in his Cajun drawl while mirroring the sung notes on guitar. Quieter moments like “Too Many Dirty Dishes” allowed more focus on his often-humorous lyrics, in this case about discovering his wife’s infidelity because there were more dirty dishes in the sink than two people would make.
Despite his strong voice, Benoit’s main draw was his guitar. Benoit is a true guitar virtuoso and has a knack for showmanship. Each song had at least one lengthy guitar solo in which Benoit unleashed fretboard fury with his endless supply of techniques. Soaring string bends, lengthy sustain, and rapid-fire shredding were Benoit’s offerings to the crowd. He often used effects pedals and his guitar’s volume knobs to layer the sounds.
On “We Make a Good Gumbo,” one section of a guitar solo was simply Benoit playing percussive pick scrapes over muted strings. “I’m just showing you what a drummer would do with a guitar,” he joked afterward.
For “When a Cajun Man Gets the Blues,” the backing band took a break, and Benoit played solo. Even without the rest of the band, Benoit’s considerable chops kept the song interesting. The slower song gave his guitar more space to breathe, as he played intricate licks across the fretboard and sang in a smooth croon.
Between songs, Benoit talked about the music and feeling connected to nature. “I like to spend time in a swamp by myself, let the cypress trees speak to me,” he said. “You gotta go outside.” After the solo performance of “When a Cajun Man Gets the Blues,” the band rejoined Benoit for a few more blues jams.
It was a night of contrasting yet complementary styles. Samantha Fish played twangy, blues-soaked rock and roll with intensity. It was a powerful, eclectic set that drew from various influences. Tab Benoit played a standard blues show, heavily improvised and made to showcase his guitar mastery. For fans of guitar masters, there was a lot to enjoy.
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