Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
If you’re going to go big, if you aim to go bigger than the Vienna Opera House then there really are only two places you can go. Either you spend a week putting the glitz and glamour into perspective at the Royal Albert Hall or you take on the history associated with New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Everything else in between is straddled between beautiful venue after interesting city or going all out and serenading 200,000 people at Rock In Rio; Radio City Hall is as big as it gets without going over the top.
For Joe Bonamassa, the regal stance of the Vienna Opera House is now but a stamp on the passport and the long lingering memory of a career that knows no bounds. Radio City Music Hall is where the heart seems to have always laid for the leader of Modern Blues, the man who brought the genre kicking and screaming in the 21st Century and to whom so many have doffed their hat in appreciation of.
Joe Bonamassa Live At Radio City Music Hall may be another live album for the masses to partake in and for the detractors to jump upon, however there is something going on in this particular live album than has been universally recognised over the last couple of years. Yes the showmanship is there, of course the beauty of a melancholic guitar being played by a master is always evident and hopeful but one thing stands out in amongst the achievement if finally reaching a desired goal in life, that of having fun, of truly letting go and not being hampered by tradition or structural formality; this is Joe Bonamassa going out and out with the band and giving all inside the building the chance to shake loose and watch him smile.
The entire set-list on the album reads like its meant to have the word and the feeling of joy stamped after each song title and in tracks such as One Less Cross To Bear, the outstanding I Gave Up Everything For You, ‘Cept The Blues, the incredible Dust Bowl and Still Water, Hidden Charms and Love Ain’t A Love Song that joy, that immense feeling of thrilled elation comes cascading across the space between speakers and the brain in a tidal wave, a surge of part electric/part acoustic bliss.
To perform inside the Radio City Music Hall is a privilege, an honour that so few can honestly ever attain, for Joe Bonamassa to perform there was never really in much doubt and he certainly makes the most of it with assurance and pleasure, a pleasure he responds and gives out doubly to his audience.
Joe Bonamassa Live At Radio City Music Hall is released on October 2nd.
Joe Bonamassa tours the U.K. from October 21st through to Saturday October 31st in Brighton with nights in Liverpool, Leeds, Nottingham, Cardiff and Bournemouth in between. For further details of prices and dates go to www.jbonamassa.com.
Ian D. Hall