By Tom O’Connor
Joe Bonamassa is scheduled to release Live At The Sydney Opera House on October 25th via Provogue/J&R Adventures. The always powerful, multi-Grammy nominated guitarist, singer-songwriter is in especially fierce form on this 2016 evening, recorded during his “Blues of Desperation” tour.
Even the band of heavy-hitters supporting Joe must have known this was going to be a special night at a special venue and they accordingly brought their A-game. With David Letterman’s Anton Fig on drums/percussion and Michael Rhodes holding down the bass, the rhythm section is solid as rebarred concrete. Adding Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Reese Wynans on keys and a horn section that includes Lee Thornburg (trumpet) and Paulie Cerra (Sax) almost feels like stacking an already favorable deck.
Opening the set with crowd-pleaser “This Train” is like lighting the fuse on the first stage of an Atlas rocket. This eight and a half minute saga gives the crowd a taste of all the band’s key elements, gives Bonamassa’s guitar plenty of room to roam, and sets a high bar for the rest of the set to follow. The band gets more funky and “Texas Flood”-y on “Mountain Climbing” which rides along on a flowing piano line, stinging horns blasts and some righteous backing vocals from Mahalia Barnes, Juanita Tippins, and Gary Pinto. Things get moody and atmospheric on “Drive,” which conjures up the perfect soundtrack for a lonely drive down a dark and dusty road in the Southwest… or the Outback.
Rolling into the middle section of the album Joe and the band unleash an epic, tour-de-force version of “Love Ain’t a Love Song,” which rolls in on a nimble Bonamassa guitar vamp before locking in on another horn-driven funkified blues. Taking nearly eleven minutes to explore every possibility this song has to offer, Joe and the band even trip out on a nearly silent middle-section that tries to get as lost as possible before finding its way back for a powerfully unhinged finish. Reese Wynan’s keyboards are especially sublime on the moody “How Deep This River Runs,” which rolls out slow and heavy (but never ponderous) and is further elevated by more outstanding backing vocals. Bonamassa’s emotional guitar break tears through the center of this tune before it wraps up with a coda that mirrors the opening. Following all that big bombast, it makes sense to then lighten the mood a little bit with a cool and cruising cover of George Terry’s “Mainline Flordia”, popularized by Eric Clapton.
A solid taste of mournful slide guitar, paired with some reverbed organ work, is both a welcome and a warning on “The Valley Runs Low,” which then rides those keyboard chords as it morphs into a gently intense exploration of the complications of the heart. This perfectly sets up what is surely the song of the night as Joe and the band sloooooowly unspool the opening bars and verses of “Blues of Desperation” in between moments when the horn-backed, central guitar riff hits the audience right between the eyes. This is the band making the most out of a song with a lot of potential handles to grab on to, and taking the audience along for the ride.
The album closes on a couple of tunes that would have made equally good album openers. “No Place for the Lonely” is a sweeping, urban/city blues with the kind of sophistication you would expect from Robert Cray. The band easily handles the shifting dynamics of the various sections and Bonamassa’s lead, cutting in for real after a bit of an early ‘false ending’ to the song and supported once again by the strong horn and keyboard lines, takes its time building to a climactic finish This is likely going to be the most intense three minutes of live guitar work you’re going to hear this year. Don’t miss it. Finally, the slow-struttin’ and saxophone-heavy “Living’ Easy” is a tasty dessert to go out on, giving everyone in the band a few final moments to shine one last time, on what was clearly a very special night.
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