And the Lord said, “Bring on the blues” and there was blues. So you would assume the Lord was hovering strong over The Corner Hotel, offering a successful launch of Mia Dyson’s brand spanking new album, Stuck Down. By the way, I’m not religious so I’ll end the God speak here.

To kick the night off was a solo acoustic set from Matt Walker. It was early in the night, the crowd was as a fair size and pretty chatty but Matt held his own as he strummed his guitar he calls Nina. I’ve long been a fan of Matt Walker but haven’t seen him play solo. Unable to create the powerful sound when teamed with drummer, Ashley Davies, it’s a different direction by Walker and a little more sombre. Still, by the end of his short set, he received a worthy response from the talkative audience. However, this was not the end of Mr Walker as he provided guitar and backing vocals for Ms Dyson.

In front of a much bigger crowd, the band begun and the curtains opened. It was at this moment I realised I was very much in the mood for some quality rock blues. This was my first Mia Dyson experience and the sound from the stage had a much bigger presence than I was expecting, based from the studio recordings. There were even moments when a level of stadium glam proportions was reached.

Mia showed here abilities as a talented musician with her husky and powerful vocals matched with her highly impressive guitar work. A nice little touch – to highlight her musical range – was the band jam transition as Dyson took to the lap steel mid-set.

During some segments of the show, the crowd maintained their chatty nature but Dyson still had them eating out of the palm of her hand for the majority of it. During minimal banter from Dyson, she showed her appreciation for the crowd’s attention with a very sincere thank you.

While this set was a very solid effort and the crowd was right into it, there is always the risk with blues that it can be a little too similar and run dry by the end of the night. There was a point where I thought this night was heading in this direction. However, the feeling was brief and it wasn’t too long before the band picked it up again and road this blues train on a high all the way to the end.

Overall, Mia Dyson provided a solid night of tunes, resulting in a very satisfied crowd. The album launch was a success with songs from the new album sounding stellar while captivating the audience. Stand-out moments were certainly saved for the end along with crowd favourite ‘Parking Lots’ and the extremely well received ‘People Turn on You.’

Also, high props go to the sound engineer, The Corner, or perhaps just the band for the evening’s superior sound. For a first-time visitor to The Corner Hotel who has heard good things about it, I must say that the sound for this show was absolutely spot-on. If all nights are like this then I’ll be sure to drop by many more times.