Last night I finally got to see Joe Bonamassa and I was simply blown away. I just starting listening to him in the two years or so and missed him the last time he came through the area so I was really looking forward to this show.
He had a solo guitarist open the show and I wish I could remember the guy's name. he said he usually works with a band but this was just him on Joe acoustic guitar. He said he was the first guy Joe signed to his label so I should be able to find out who he is that way.
A guy named Todd Wolfe came on next and was also pretty good. I really liked his slide guitar work, like he was channeling Duane Allman (he through in some Allman Brothers as well). I went out to the lobby after his set to buy one of his CDs.
Bonamassa ended up playing about two hours, maybe a little more and just oozed blues. I didn't catch the bass players name but I'm going to have to see if I can find out. He didn't really get to solo but he played solid bass lines the whole night and when he did step outside that box he sounded really good.
Besides begin a great show it was also in a really cool Masonic center - the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood NJ (a few minutes outside Philadelphia, just across the Delaware River). The theater probably only has 1000 seats or so and there were maybe 500 people there. Even with so few people there the response was still still big enough to bring him back for a three song encore and then back again for another encore that was just him on acoustic guitar before finally ending. I saw Kansas there a few years ago (they were as good then as the many times I saw them when they were at their peak) and was happy to get to go back. These small venues are SO much better than the big hockey rink arenas!
The only low point for the show? Some idiots up in the highest seats were heckling him. He was doing some really delicate stuff on his Les Paul and they kept yelling so you couldn't hear it. He actually "Shush!"ed them at one point. Then they kept yelling crap like "We hate you" and "I'll bet you think you're impressing the ladies". Yeah, like YOU morons are impressing the ladies with your stupidity.....
Anyway, if you haven't seen him he does a great show and is worth checking out live. And if you're in the Philadelphia area you should definitely look for an opportunity to go to the Scottish Rite Auditorium.
