Alabama 3
02 Academy, Bristol
12th December 2025

The quasi-spoof-religious bluesy dance experience of Alabama 3 hits Bristol on its annual December tour. Elfyn Griffith immerses himself in the baptismal font.

This is homage and celebration of deceased founder member Jake Black, aka The Very Rev Dr D Wayne Love, who passed away six years ago, as indeed all the bands’ gigs have been since then. He is ever-present, his saintly image looking down on the audience from three stained glass window-type screens above and to both sides of the stage, his AI involvement and vocals very much a part of the show.

Before the dawn, support band Forgotten Pharaohs are a raw and rugged blues-drenched throwback to a kind of ’60s/’70s pre-Americana. High-flown ballads soaked in mysticism with a grunge rock hide. Beard, hair and a female bassist. Carousel, from last year’s album King of Mirrors, stands out.

 

Then begins the build up to The First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine as was, Alabama 3 as is the past two decades. Strobes, pulsating crescendos of house and then – to church…

Opening and closing with November’s single Sex Machine Learning, this is an hour and a half and more of the Alabama’s back catalogue – dirty blues awash with country, gospel and acid house with a big slab of irreverence and humour, cowboy glitter and attitude. Other founder member Rob Spragg, aka Larry Love, and Sheena Ross, aka Sister Sheena, share the vocals, Spragg leading with his deep-blues-Howling Wolf-from-Caaaardiff brogue and Ross giving it a solid soul holler.

The searing atmospheric blues of Mansion On The Hill and then Rattlesnake Woman precede their most famous number, the world-famous Sopranos’ theme tune Woke Up This Morning, here given a long echoing harmonica intro.

New single Country Boy (I Love This City) continues the almost cinematic grit of their sound. ‘This is for all the country fans who do LSD’ says Spragg introducing the John Prine cover Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, the eternal booming bass drum of Johnny Delafons, aka L.B, Dope, pulsing and propulsing the wired mesh of blues and country before it, stabs of blues harp from the aptly monickered Harpo Strangelove (Nick Reynolds) and the delta guitar hooks of Mark Sams, aka Rock Freebase. Slivers of keyboard from Orlando Harrison, aka Spirit of Love.

There’s always been an edge to the Alabama’s sound, a knowingly drug-soaked outsider stance that’s electrifyingly compulsive when it kicks in. There’s clout and tongue-in-cheek anarcho irreverence in spades, but also a solid sensibility of the blues and soul and country which inspires their sound. Put in a blender with acid house.

To that effect, after a great stomping rendition of Power In The Blood, Spragg adds that they’ve unashamedly ‘stolen licks from country and blues artists over the years’ (who hasn’t) before Sister Sheena gives it the full spine-tingling soul vocal range on the Sister Rosetta Tharpe-inspired Up Above My Head, given the Alabama’s blues-dance treatment.

Are we ready for the resurrection? More A1 messages from the image of Jake Black. It’s joyously weird stuff. Ain’t Goin’ To Goa is a hypnotic blues rave swinger, and Flag, their Woody Guthrie song, is dedicated to ‘Nigel fuckin’ Farage’ with it’s message of inclusion and anti-nationalism and chorus of ‘I don’t need no country, I don’t fly no flag’. Prescient, passionate and powerful.

Then into madness – acid tinged dance and sampled voices with Mao Tse Tung Said, Latin surreality in Margarita Time, the emotionally feelgood Hello…I’m Johnny Cash, and a rousing finale of Hypo Full of Love (The 12 Step Plan).

Of course there’s an encore, dry ice, and Spragg, having swapped his white glitter jacket for a black shirt, dedicating Dead Men Don’t Tell…’to all the young ‘uns in the audience whose parents have ruined their lives with Alabama 3 music’. What a way to get ruined with it seguing into a slamming Too Sick To Pray and the gently building country house of U Don’t Dance To Tekno. ‘Raving in Bristol on a fuckin’ Friday night’ as Mr Love puts it.

Bookending with Sex Machine Learning, the disembodied message of the late Rev Dr D Wayne Love from the start of the show comes to mind: ‘Just as I have been resurrected by the power of the spirit, so shall all righteous hepcats and swingers be granted eternal life by the sacred mystery of sex machine learning.’

Alabama 3 – keeping the spirit of sharp, sleazy, politico rockin’ alive and dangerous…not to mention weird and witty.

 

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All words by Elfyn Griffith, you can find his author’s archive here

All photos by Simon Reed