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No problem for Romi Mayes and Jay Nowicki

Romi Mayes set herself a huge task when she decided her new album was going to be a one-shot, live recording of 11 new tunes — done as an electric guitar duo featuring just her and Jason Nowicki.

Her friend and musical compatriot Jaxon Haldane alluded to this as he introduced the rootsy singer/songwriter just prior to the ‘live recording’ portion of this evening — pointing out that, in 1973, Neil Young used a full band and took an entire 65-show tour to record the new material on Time Fades Away.

Romi, of course, chose to do it in just one night. But, hey, Romi is as Romi does, and she’s talented and experienced enough to know that she and Nowicki could do it.

Which they did. In spades.

Actually, this performance was never really in doubt. Nowicki and Mayes had been working up the songs for months, and this was the friendliest crowd Romi's ever likely to see. Still, to get the feel of the sold-out crowd and to warm themselves up, the twosome played an opening set of tunes from her previous three recordings.

As old favourites such as The Other Dame, Tire Marks and Somethin’ Goin’ On rained down, the pair was locked in step, intuitively aware of each other’s every move on the fretboard. As they played, the 389 people hooted and hollered their approval — applauding every solo and calling out the players' names between songs.

The, after a short break (likely a couple of smokes and a swig of whiskey), it was showtime.

The 11 new songs came quickly, in an just over an hour, and — while Mayes and Nowicki may hear discrepancies when listening back — those on hand certainly felt there was little wrong with what they took in.

Romi and Jay were an absolute force of an electric blues duo and, when they were joined onstage by others — Haldane sang harmonies a couple times, Ken McMahon added kick drum and brushes on a few songs and Damon Mitchell wailed with both harp and voice on one tune— the guests neither overwhelmed the songs nor distracted from the vibe at the core of the show.

The end result will be an album that’s carefully balanced between grinding, grooving roadhouse rhythms, heartfelt guitar solos (from Nowicki, especially) and Romi’s aching, yearning voice and lyrics.

As ever, Romi has written songs that drip with longing, desire and the unspoken thoughts of the lovelorn and frustrated. Two of them, in particular, stood out from the rest.

Ball and Chain is a naked self-appraisal from the point of view of a ne’er-do-well character that literally brought the West End to a hush. I Will, meanwhile, marked Romi’s live piano debut and also led to her only fuck-up of the evening, which prompted a good-natured ‘do-over’ that drew laughs and cheers. That aside, the power of the tune itself was palpable; it's a deceptively simply melody whose plaintive declaration of love will get most people right where they live.

As the night drew to a close, many in the crowd found it hard to leave — not wanting to let go of the feeling. One of the women in front of me said to her friends: "I came close to tears a few times."

She wasn’t the only one.