Joe Bonamassa on stage in Greenwich. Photograph by Dafydd Owen.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
If there is royalty around that is still to be admired in the 21st Century then surely it is those who take a genre of music and revive it to the point where it actually becomes a living breathing entity again. The Blues, arguably considered by many of a certain age and below had had its day, it was just quietly wheezing under its own lethargic weight, under its once bloated self importance and slowly dying of excess; the dreaded and fatal disease to which all must it seems eventually succumb to.
Whether Blues was on its knees is debateable but it certainly was not well, not at least till Joe Bonamassa reinvigorated it with the sense of decorum that only a man of his talent and standing is able to do. To be Regal does not mean to have blue blood in your veins, it means to have the bearing to be noble and humble enough to change things, to place your talent in the firing line if must be and lead by example to the audience yearning, straining at the Blues leash, to have greatness in their lives once more.
It was that example at the Greenwich Music Time Festival that brought home just exactly how much Joe Bonamassa has added to the recovery of the Blues. A genre that had fallen from impressive heights to a place of almost cruel parody, was now back to its best and it was a sight to experience as the Thames rolled past in the vicinity and the dusk gathered around the old Navel College.
In homage to the British Blues Explosion of the golden age of the genre, Joe Bonamassa took the audience down the road of merging, melding, great songs from the past but with his own dignified stamp on the course of each note. Tracks such as Mainline Florida, Let Me Love You Baby, Spanish Boots, Motherless Children and I Can’t Quit You Baby all paid homage, all harnessed reverence to both the music of the likes of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and installed Joe Bonamassa as the King of all he surveyed.
A superb night of music in the grandest of settings and full of dominance by a man respectful of the past but the true instigator of the genre returning to its rightful place in the world.
Ian D. Hall