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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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JOE BONAMASSA Shepherds Bush Empire, London,
March 29th 2007 |
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It’s
my birthday, and for a special treat we’re
at the Shepherds Bush Empire to see the latest hot-rod
blues guitarist from the USA, Joe
Bonamassa. Joe’s not that well
known over here – but he’s managed to
sell out the Bush, which is packed to the rafters
with mobile phone camera-wielding guitar anoraks
both young and old, and a very nice crew they are
too. |
| We’re
standing at the back (in sardine mode) next to the
Shepherds Bush Philosophical Society for Indigent
Gentlemen, who’ve obviously spent much of
the evening debating matters of great import in
the pub, but they’re not short of a knowledgeable
and well-informed word or two to help us (and those
around us) appreciate some of the finer points of
the evening. “Rory Gallagher would fucking
wipe the floor with him”; “how many
Jimmy Page riffs has he played now?”, or –
as Joe uncharacteristically slips into an exotic
minor key – “Oh no, it’s the fucking
Ravi Shankar bit…” |
| Although
I struggle to visualise this, Joe
apparently started playing the guitar when he was
only four (his Dad owned a guitar shop). No doubt
he was nurtured in a crib on top of a Marshall Vintage
reissue all-valve JCM-900 100 watt stack. He was
good enough on the axe to be opening for B B King
(who described him as “unbelievable”
and “one of a kind”) by the time he
was twelve, and began recording with the sons-of-the-stars
band Bloodline, before releasing his first solo
album in 2000 at the age of 23. He’s now recorded
eight albums of which the most recent, You and Me,
was released last year. He’s on a short tour
of Europe and then seems to be spending much of
the rest of the year on the road back home in the
States. |
Marshall JCM 900
4100 Dual Reverb |
| What
else? Well Ted
Nugent (remember Ted?) played with Joe and recalled
the experience thus: "Last night, my musical
jihad grew even more hair on its scrotum, because
I got to jam onstage, no band, just a couple of
Les Pauls and a kid named Joe Bonamassa, a white
kid from New York …this kid deserves to be
in the same class with Stevie Ray Fucking Vaughan
and Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. It was really inspiring.”
And although I’m revealing no details of my
scrotum let me echo Ted’s words – this
boy’s guitar playing is technically on a another
planet. I mean he must be good – he’s
got a collection of over 150 guitars to practise
on! |
| Sadly
technique isn’t always enough. There’s
no shortage of great playing, either from Bonamassa
himself or his extremely competent band, bassist
Mark Epstein and drummer Bogie Bowles. The problem
is that, even more than the audience, Joe seems
to be stuck in a bit of a time-warp, somewhere like
1973 to be precise, and to be honest as the night
went on I began to get a bit confused as to which
birthday I was actually celebrating. |
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You
see Joe likes to wear his influences on his sleeve,
so amid flashes of Albert King phrasing and occasional
B B King licks the most predominate sources of inspiration
were that gang of ne’r-do-well British rockers
from a few years before Joe was born, Gallagher,
Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, et. al. And if Joe’s
mastered their styles almost to perfection then
he’s also borrowed Gary Moore’s almost
prehistoric Monsters of Rock grimace combined with
Alvin Lee’s wonderful extending chin (cf.
Woodstock, ‘I’m
going home’). |
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There’s also the obligatory acoustic guitar
bit, where he nearly burns the frets off his lovely
guitar playing ‘Woke up dreaming”. But
really once you’ve got over the fact that
he can really play it that fast, that loud, that
quietly it all becomes somewhat prosaic. And what
finally did it for me was Bonamassa’s bizarre
choice of the Yes classic ‘Starship trooper’
as his closing song (a regular feature of his set
apparently). I wondered if I was the only person
in the Bush who actually heard Steve Howe play THAT
guitar solo from the coda back in 1971 at Birmingham
Town Hall, almost 36 years to the day. And to be
frank, in so far as I can remember, Steve played
it better.But still, for guitar fanatics Joe is
the man, and if that’s your cup of tea then
you should certainly go and see him, buy his CDs
or have a look at the numerous video clips on You
Tube (if you’re very keen you can even watch
him demonstrate
his pedal board – cool!). He’s an
electric player, but with all the charisma of a
singed guitar pick – so don’t expect
a lot by way of entertainment beyond the riffs.
And one final thing I should say, is what a lovely
audience and a good atmosphere. So a particular
thank you to the chaps in the mosh who kindly took
the Photographer under their wings and helped her
get a decent picture, and of course to the Philosophical
Society: “Hang on, didn’t Peter Green
play that line with the Bluesbreakers in 1967….?”
- Nick Morgan (concert photographs by Kate) |
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