01 July 2011 (gig)
03 July 2011
Gregg Allman achieved the rare accolade of a standing ovation merely for walking on the stage at the Barbican on Friday. Together with a band of remarkable quality he played around an hour and a half and left to an even greater ovation to when he arrived – he could have gotten away with murder but what he gave a capacity crowd was a performance that deserved the reaction from the crowd.
Starting off seated at his Hammond B-3 his voice was a high and reedy but even though you could hear the age in his voice he still carries a song brilliantly. This is a man who has battled drink, drugs (clean and dry since 1995) and hepatitis and had a liver transplant last year and all that history in in his voice and his demeanour but he brings all the tribulations into his performance and there is no doubt of his endearing talent and quality.
The band were quite stunning, mainly from Woodstock New York, and including his oldest friend Floyd Miles on percussion and vocals and stunning guitar from Scott Sharrard. Jay Collins is a terrific accompanist on Sax and flute (abetted by Londoners Lee Badau & Alistair Walker for the Barbican show) and Bruce Katz delivered fine piano playing. The rhythm section of Jerry Jenmot on bass and Steve Potts, drums were tight and fluid and created a huge fundament for the band.
He played numbers from all his solo albums including a few from the ‘Low Country Blues’ album but the biggest cheers, inevitably were for numbers like ‘Melissa’ and ‘Midnight Rider’ plus, of course, the iconic ‘Whipping Post’. ‘Just Another Rider’ really stood out for me as he shared guitar with Scott Sherrard and ‘Just Before The Bullets’ rocked like a devil. The encore of ‘Floating Bridge’ and an imperious ‘Statesboro Blues’ had the crowd whipped into a froth and promises that he will return next year kept the crowd cheered for a good few minutes after he left the stage.
Artists like Gregg Allman should be cherished but he proved last night that he is as powerful and relevant today as he has been in years and a superb performance showed that age and illness will NOT keep talent down.
