Bursting out of phones and screens during the dark days of the pandemic, The Lucky Doves set Scotland alight with a bold, modern, rocky re-imagining of a Robert Burns song. They soon stepped magnificently out under stage lights to prove they can also do it in the flesh and quickly won a formidable fanbase. Think you know the sound from a Scottish lowland town steeped in history and the national bard? They're here to make you think again. At the core of the five-piece is the voice and songs of Grant Dinwoodie, a quintessential theatrical frontman, who doesn't so much sing songs as perform them. Strutting, swinging and sliding his way across the stage, he takes audiences along for a high octane ride. His sheer energy and stage presence was key to the band's massive reception when they played to a full house at Glasgow's iconic Royal Concert Hall. But his songs show a depth way beyond the pomp and colour of the big stages.
The flamboyant frontman has surrounded himself with musicians who can count more than a hundred years of delighting audiences between them. They are no boyband, but it's not dad rock either. The lyrical, soaring fiddle work of Jamie McClennan sits effortlessly beside the vocal, conveying stories of its own and nodding to their small town roots. Guitar comes from the massively versatile Dave Bass, totally at ease leaping from grandstanding rock riffs to blues and folk influenced finger work. Fergus Henderson supplies driving rhythm with an effortless groove whilst Barry Gemmell brings indie inspiration to a bass sound that pulls the tight unit together.
Emerging from the studio of Ross Hamilton (Texas/Olly Murs/ Nathan Evans) with the blistering 'Book of Bruce' - an homage to the influence of Bruce Springsteen - the band showed their hefty firepower for stadium rock style, but there's plenty of heart and soul too in their early ballad offerings. They've been compared to Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle and Vance Joy, but in truth they really only sound like The Lucky Doves.