Tom Baxter is a one of those artists who literally sweats talent. His songs have been performed by the likes Dame Shirley Bassey and Ronan Keating, they offer stunning melodies with intense emotion, Tom is a professor of his field.
Baxter is a confident performer and despite it being his first gig in over a year he wasn’t slightly perturbed that the sound team had managed to forget his mic. Instead he unplugged his guitar and performed the first song to a completely silent Ulster Hall audience.
Headlining the Ulster Hall Nashville Songwriters Festival it isn’t a surprise the event is sponsored by Avalon Guitars. Tom has played guitars hand crafted in the Newtownards factory for quite a few years and it only takes one or two songs to realise why Avalon are so proud of this fact.
It is difficult to describe the Tom Baxter musical experience in words, one man, one guitar yet every inch of the Ulster Hall resonated with music. There is no questioning the quality of the Avalon range for producing warm rich tones but in the hands of Tom Baxter the sound is utterly spectacular.
Tom is renowned for his song writing talent, when you multiply the power of his writing by the intensity of his performances, strange things happen. On one occasion, he was playing a gig in Ireland when a girl was so moved, she proposed to him, I managed to control myself though.
An event sponsored by Guinness won’t be complete without some reference to the drink. Shame it was from a can though. Tom was the final artist in an event so packed with artists an encore was out of the question. If you want more information on Tom or the Avalon acoustic range check out the links below. Additional photos are available in the flickr set.
As someone that’s both shot and done sound for Tom Baxter, I have to say that if the ‘sound team’ forgot the mic, you’ll find there was none. Tom normally travels without a sound engineer and relies on whoever works as venue sound engineer. I’ve mixed 3 or 4 gigs for Tom at The Roisin Dubh, and while they are a lot of hard work, they are equally as rewarding because the final output is so good.
He was unreal. It was a music festival so wasn’t Tom’s team. What a guitarist !