*****

Hearing a hard rock/metal gig in Brighton from one of the top international bands in the business has something of a unicorn quality about it. Rare, but worth the wait.

An Evening With Black Stone Cherry, though sounding like a Saturday-night talk show, has a special quality for any proper rock fans out there.

The evening is split into an acoustic set, allowing the aficionados time to appreciate the lyrics and quality of the music, before a little break, a few beers and a full rock set list.

The format worked beautifully, in the words of lead guitarist and singer Chris Robertson: "Black Stone Cherry have the best warm-up act in the world: Black Stone Cherry."

This writer couldn't agree more. Once you've heard classics such as Like I Roll in acoustic you start to appreciate them all over again for their simple musicality.

The format had the added benefit of then not allowing pesky slow songs to get in the way of the jumping around in the second half.

Black Stone Cherry absolutely smashed the second half, releasing the pent-up aggression that had been building throughout the first, exemplified by John Fred Young on drums, who restrained himself in the first half long enough to only get one rebuttal for being too loud.

Black Stone Cherry are the masters of building a set list one step at a time, saving Me And Mary Jane and Blame It On The Boom Boom until near the end, building slowly, riff after riff. This meant that when they finished with a rock version of Voodoo Child and said goodnight, the house speakers blasting out We Are The Champions felt both deserved and only slightly cheesy.

With places like the Caroline of Brunswick closing, this gig proves Brighton has an insatiable hunger for rock and metal - a genre not often catered for on such a stage in this wonderful city.