Last night was my annual homage to Joe Bonamassa. Shaun and Michael Jackson (No, not the dead one), had kindly got tickets for the Hammersmith Apollo, and off we went. The evening started in classical style with a Thai meal on Hammersmith Broadway with, of course, copious beer, and then we sallied forth to the Apollo.
That was where the first shock happened, there was a HUGE queue. When I first heard Bonamassa 3 years ago, he was a niche blues player that no-one had heard of. This was clearly not the case now as the Apollo was sold out to it’s capacity of 5,250
The support act was Sandi Thom, She was very good, but it wasn’t my style as it was Country Blues, nevertheless, well performed.
I’d managed to get pretty close to the front and when Sandi was on, it was very comfortable.
Set complete, roadies did their bit and in less than 20 minutes a roar went up from the crowd as Joe got on the stage, and started the gig with “John Henry”
The gig continued with tracks old and new, and by about 30 minutes in the band was really rocking, and the atmosphere was great.
As I mentioned earlier, I was right at the front, next to the bass stack, and was becoming aware of the combination of gut thumping bass, heat, and crushing bodies was make me feel a bit odd. However, it was sooooo good that I let those feelings pass
Bonamassa did a great job as he went through his current and back catalogue, with hardly a seconds gap as he went from perfectly executed song to another.
The only time that he really spoke was to comment on the fact that almost exactly 10 years ago he was supporting Jethro Tull, and thought that Ian Anderson was a nice guy. This, of course, was just a lead up to Ian joining him on stage for 3 numbers
An audible laugh went up when Anderson’s leg started to come up and do this weird circling motion. I remember him doing it during the “Aqualung” period, he still does it now.
By this point, the crushing sensation was starting to get to me, so I forced my way to the back of the hall to try a get away from the heat, the bass bins and the bodies. This alone must have taken 5-10 minutes.
I listened to a few more tracks from the entrance hall, but just couldn’t face more crushing, so decided to leave 25 minutes from the end..
It was a great evening, Bonamassa continues his meteoric rise, Shaun and Mike were great company – all in all a really good evening.
