The crowd at London’s Royal Festival Hall got quite a treat on Saturday night as one of the legends of British Blues, Jack Bruce,was joined by the current champion Blues guitarist, Joe Bonamassa.
As part of the London Guitar Festival sponsored by the International Guitar Foundation this was following a gig by Eric Bibb at the same venue (sublime by all accounts) and a one-off in the capital by Jack Bruce this year.
Ian Siegal got the evening off to a fine start with half an hour of superb acoustic Blues played entirely on what looked to be a 1930’s Resonator. The crowd was well behind him and numbers like ‘The Silver Spurs’ and ‘Mary Don’t You Weep’ found his voice at its roughest and his playing superb. He can be a most charming player and his banter with the crowd saw smiles all round. When Siegal is on this form he is a real talent and one of the best that the UK has to offer.
After a short break The Big Blues Band took the stage and played a couple of numbers without the leader including a turgid ‘Every Day I Get The Blues’and a slightly confused ‘Rollin’ & Tumblin’ that didn’t seem to know if it wanted to be a Robert Johnson or a Stones style number and ended up a bit of neither.
On came the small, splay footed figure of Jack Bruce and the performance kicked up a notch – not least because Bruce’s Bass was so loud – with a kicking version of ‘First Time I Met The Blues’ and a truly wonderful ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ with the whole band – three horns as well as the keys, bass, guitar and drums – cooking and working as a unit. The first number that had the crowd whooping.
Then Bruce introduced Joe Bonamassa and it all changed.
Jack Bruce has played with some great guitarists over the years – Eric Clapton, John McLaughlin, Leslie West, Gary Moore and Robin Trower among them but bringing Joe Bonamassa to play with him was a masterstroke.
They opened with Gary Moore’s ‘Midnight Blues’ and closing my eyes I could damn near see Gary Moore on the stage in front of me. Bonamassa sounded stunning and as a tribute it was superb.
Then Bruce took to the piano for ‘Theme For An Imaginary Western’ and the song really hit the spot with the keys and the horns filling the sound out and Bonamassa’s solo right on the mark. Bruce’s vocals aren’t exactly powerful but the song is perfectly suited to his range and for me it was one of the highpoints of the evening.
By this time the crowd was getting really behind the performance and as the familiar opening to ‘White Room’ sounded a huge cheer went up. Bonamassa and Bruce were beginning to cook together and with Bonamassa moving around the stage it brough some much needed activity to the performance – live music without theatre can be flat.
‘Big Black Car’ as always cooked nicely and when the band went into ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’ it hit the highest point with a stunning jam between Bruce and Bonamassa battling away and giving and getting no quarter.
The encore was ‘Spoonful’, once more with Bonamassa and Bruce really getting into it together and the band holding on for dear life.
Afterwards, Bonamassa said that playing with Bruce was “surreal” – “thirty years ago I grew up listening to these songs and to be here playing with Jack Bruce – that really is surreal” and when I asked if he was now going to try and get to play with Ginger Baker he just gave a smile.
Joe Bonamassa showed that he really can play classics as well as playing his own material and his playing was a real delight – Jack Bruce wasn’t too bad for a near-septuagenarian either!
To be in with a chance of winning 1000 CDs including rare, signed and promotional copies simply ‘like’ our Award Winning facebook page here! And double your chances by following us on Twitter For all DVD, Blu-Ray and other film related prizes visit our sister site film-news.co.uk competitions page here. Good luck! 