Joe Bonamassa

London Hammersmith Apollo

21 Mar 2015

Reviewer: Peter Scallan

I had been waiting quite some time to see Joe Bonamassa and his solo show for quite some time, having only seen him with Black Country Communion when they toured the UK a few years ago. Quite often such lengthy anticipation can lead to such disappointment, so it was with a mixture of excitement and caution that I made the journey to London to see this guy.

The lights went out and a James Bond-style intro was played before Joe launched into the first two songs from his last studio album Different Shades of Blue, namely Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) and Oh Beautiful and already I was impressed. Next up was another song from the same album, namely Never Give All your Heart Away in which Joe demonstrated what a great live vocalist he is too. He then rolled onto a Howlin Wolf cover (Hidden Charm) from his recently released live CD/DVD set. He then swung into another song from Shades entitled Living on the Moon, which really did swing! And continuing with the same album he played Trouble Town with the brass section doing their thang maan! This started with an awesome display of bottleneck playing which I don’t think I have seen anybody do since Micky Moody was in Whitesnake!

Drawing again on the recent live album, he then gave us Otis Rush’s Double Trouble which opened with some great piano which continued to drive this slow-burning blueser along nicely. Again JoBo demonstrated he is a bona fide blues man with both his playing and vocals. He then jumped back to the shades album for I Gave Up Everything For You ‘Cept the Blues. He then played what I think was another cover, which I wasn’t sure about, which turned into a mammoth blues jam with a muted trumpet solo. I wasn’t familiar with the next song either which I believe may also be a cover called One Less Cross to Bear. He then continued with some more tracks from the Shades album including the excellent So What Would I Do before getting into the set closers. Both these were from the Sloe Gin album. Possibly my favourite Bonamassa track, he unveiled an awesome version of Sloe Gin itself, starting slowly and building up from there. And then of course was there was the Ballad of John Henry which is a truly magnificent example of blues rock at its best, which even Jimmy Page would be proud of. The encore was another cover which I think was Muddy Water’s All Aboard. During this the brass section got to strut their stuff and their was also a guest guitarist, whose name I didn’t catch as I was so engrossed. Apparently someone said it was Bernie Marsden, but it was hard to tell! Regardless, this brought the show to a fitting close.

What can I say – the guy was awesome. A number of occasions I watched his playing wondering how he could tease out sounds with such extreme light and shade and not appear to be near any effects pedals, relying on pure technique by the looks of it. And his guitar sound was just incredible too. Of course, it was self-indulgent with only 16 songs in over two hours, but we were all there to see this guy do! And not forgetting that live he has an awesome voice too and it was definitely one of my bucket list that was worth the travel and hassle! In summary, we were treated to a vulgar display of of serious geetar porn which blew me away completely. This was one from the bucket list that was worth the hassle and expense and shall have me smiling all the way to the crematorium!