Colin James

When a man hasn’t been to the UK for 25 years it is difficult to think what he is going to be like live and when, as he announced a few times, he has only had a couple of hours to rehearse with a pickup band for his only solo show while on tour with Beth Hart you gotta worry.
But when the pickup band includes the brilliant Lorenzo Moufflier on harp and Steve Turner on keyboards, suddenly things are looking brighter. He also has Chris Caddell from Toronto on rhythm guitar and the whole ensemble put on a stonker of a show.

Any gig that opens with a version of ‘Boogie Funk’ is going to get my attention and the whole set kicked on from there as though the band had been together for years. ‘Big Road Blues’ and Peter Green’s ‘Watch Out!’ were superb and the crowd was warming up rapidly as he tore into his own ‘Freedom’.
Breathless stuff, his guitar playing was excellent and his vocals remarkably good for a man who has been on the road for nearly 30 years. For me though it was his playing alongside Lorenzo Moufflier that really set off some sparks as well as brilliant keys.

So many highlights. A great version of Hollywood Fats ‘Lonesome’ led into a cracking ‘Hoodooman Blues’.
‘Going Down’ powered along with some great riffs from Caddell and then all of a sudden it all finished with a massive slab of ‘Keep On Loving Me’.
He encored with Van Morrison’s ‘Into The Mystic’ – rare and brave.

All in all a top show and I was glad that I didn’t just rely on seeing him with Beth Hart. Hopefully not 25 years before he returns.