Josiah & the Bonnevilles at Smiling Buddha

The smiling Buddha played host to a range of guitar strummers on Monday. Up first was self-proclaimed ‘celebrated folk icon’ Ivan Rivers, albeit said with tongue firmly in cheek. Rivers had a mellow sound and one bum string on his guitar which led to a few discordant notes throughout his short opening set.

Next up was Jenn Fiorentino, with an energetic strumming guitar-driven Ska style rock that has you harkening back to the 90s and early 2000s. She threw in a cover of The Gaslight Anthem’s ‘Handwritten’ and Santigold’s ‘The Keepers’ which went down well with the crowd.

Josiah arrived on stage solo, with solid guitar skills with his boot-stomping to join as percussion. The Tennessee native has a gravel to his voice that suits the folk country roots of his upbringing in Tennessee and heavily influences his current EP. Suitably starting his set with ‘Back to Tennessee’, Josiah followed up with ‘Easy to Love’ and covered Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’. There were a few mentions of a former love and a couple of bleeding heart tracks, as well as mention of his time spent in LA and his early signing with Warner Brothers. Josiah was joined for ‘Six Dollar Cheque’ by his tour companion LP, fresh from Field Trip the day before, who stuck around to enjoy the rest of the set.

The audience was treated to ‘Long Gone’ from an upcoming album before finishing with crowd pleasing ‘Cold Blood’ and ‘Lie With Me’. The encore was hollered for before he’d even left stage to shouts of “one more song” which he obliged. Firing through ‘Please’ and enjoying the front row’s dancing before stepping off stage and off out of the venue. It wasn’t until then that I realised how small he is. The power of his voice, guitar and Harmonica on stage is enough to make him seem much more statuesque.