Joe Bonamassa - blues!
Those who weighed in on their trip to the Forum Karlín on Monday, October 5, 2015, had no regrets. Seeing and hearing the absolute top of the genre today is always a treat. This time, blues lovers were in for a treat. Approximately 2,500 spectators were not even in their seats when shortly after 8 p.m. the first chord of the Gibson Les Paul guitar started the more than two-hour performance, in which the thirty-eight-year-old American blues fanatic Joe Bonamassa was the main speaker. "Spanish Boots" (2010's Black Rock) provided the opener, played with an intimate lineup of guitar, bass, drums. The author of this song is Jeff Beck, who is one of Joe's role models, and perhaps for symbolic reasons, as he has the same initials J.B. A relatively austere stage with tapes and a lyric reader, adequate lighting without superfluous effects and good sound were the ingredients that accompanied the whole concert. Second on the set list was "I Know Where I Belong" from the album A New Day Yesterday (2000). The guitar swap for a Fender Stratocaster was lightning fast and the solo, played after the second verse of this original affair, had a nice and sensitive tone control using virtually the entire fingerboard. Indeed, Joe Bonamassa confirmed this ability in many other pieces. His playing style may be based on the classic blues as translated or performed by Eric Clapton, Rory Gallagher or Stevie Ray Vaughan, but Bonamassa, despite his relative youth, puts his soul into the harmonies, shtick and progressions, making his expression distinctive, typical and recognizable. Heavy songs, often with a prologue in the form of small guitar exhibitions, e.g. "Hey Baby", are interspersed with quiet blues, but always with an emphasis on dynamic effects. A case in point is "Double Trouble", where Joe first tenderly caresses a pale blue Gibson with his signature inlay on the fingerboard, only to wake the audience from their reverie at another point with a powerful entrance, and keep them fully attentive until the end of the show. The concert had no pronounced highlights, which is somewhat due to the absence of hits in the discography, but on the other hand, at no point, did it descend to the verge of boredom. Tracks like "Going Down" with a nicely built piano and keyboard solo by the sixty-eight year old Reese Wynans, or "Love Ain't a Love Song" (Different Shades of Blue, 2014) with a guitar solo in an almost acoustic rendition, gave the show the necessary variety that is sometimes a weakness of genre-defined concerts. Closing with the title track from the album of the same name, "The Ballad of John Henry" (2009), Joe Bonamassa, in jacket, sneakers, and the requisite sunglasses, introduced his bandmates midway through the evening. The rhythm section was wonderfully paced thanks to one of the busiest drummers ever, Anton Figo (63), and bassist Michael Rhodes (62). The experience of this tandem is certainly not lacking, having worked with Cocker, Dylan, Jagger, Brian Wilson and others. Gradually a brass section was added, dominated by Lee Thornburg on trumpet.
Joe Bonamassa brought to Prague, again after two years, a balanced blues repertoire, an outstanding band with great blues sensibilities and a refinement and elegance evoking the traditions of the Negro blues. Simply and simply BLUES.