Back by popular demand Nikki Hill and her band will be performing again at the 2021 edition of the San Diego Blues Festival. She has become a blues festival favorite here in Southern California and everywhere else for that matter. This performance review I published back in 2017 might shed some light on my affection for this exciting musician.

Nikki Hill and her band played unapologetic, unfettered rock & roll that was unhinged and untethered on Sunday, May 20^th, at the Doheny Blues Festival.

By way of clarification, let me explain why this so-called blues purist is taking the time and trouble to share my thoughts on this particular performer. It is because Hill and her band make for the perfect blues festival jolt of fun between the more traditional blues performers and the histrionic laden, wanking blues-rock acts that pander to the masses, who otherwise don’t care much about music in general and certainly not about blues music specifically.

Armed with an arsenal of mostly original material which came primarily from her two albums, 2013’s Here’s Nikki Hill and the 2015 release Heavy Hearts Hard Fists, Hill grabbed hold of her audience and didn’t let go until they were in a frenzy.  Well, at least as lathered up as a crowd of this aging demographic can get.

With the guitar tandem of husband Matt Hill and Laura Chavez leading the charge, young Nikki Hill reminded a large throng of what made vintage rock & roll so much fun in the first place.

Competing with Hill over on the main stage was Eric Burdon who reportedly, and predictably, played classic-rock radio friendly hit songs which were staples of public consumption two decades before Hill was even born. However, those with a little more spirit, adventure and hip to what is going on here in the second decade of this millennium were in for treat. Nikki Hill and her band delivered the goods.

Hill closed her set out with the Gary U.S. Bonds classic, call and response, sing along, New Orleans before returning to the stage for an encore and whipping the crowd further into bedlam with the Chuck Berry classic Sweet Little Rock and Roller.

It is as if Berry had Hill in mind when he wrote this song back in 1958. While that of course isn’t the case, Nikki Hill does exude that kind of combination of vulnerability and toughness that lies in the heart of every great performer regardless of the genre or label some scribe wants to slap on her.

After her performance a fellow traveler approached me and tried to talk me down out of the Nikki Hill buzz I had going on. He said, “Dave, what do you think?” He didn’t wait for my answer, but went on to say, “Sure she is young, exciting, energetic, charismatic and good looking, but she isn’t really a blues singer.” To that I responded, “Check, check, check, check and check…and what’s your point?”

It is that youthful energy, vitality and vivacity that Nikki Hill brought to the stage at the Doheny Blues Festival that is exactly and entirely the point. It felt like I had a double shot of espresso in one hand and a fist full of adrenaline in the other. It felt good. It felt right. That’s what I think.

The day this old timer stops enjoying a Nikki Hill show is the day I’m going to die and I’m not ready to do that quite yet.

- David Mac