The first time MV saw Joe Bonamassa was before we were MV. 2009. He was touring the “Ballad Of John Henry” album, which I adored. It’s no exaggeration to say that what happened that night on April 23rd, 2009, made me see the blues in a different way.
I’ve seen him many, many times in the intervening 16 years – and in many different guises – but one thing has always bound the shows like a golden thread: there’s a moment where you know you’re in the presence of greatness.
Here, it comes early.
He’s starting the 2025 tour with “Hope You Realize It (Goodbye Again)” and Reese Wynans – a hall of famer if ever there was – and Joe are melding their organ and guitar, and it transcends to somewhere that no one else can.
They move into another of his songs after, “Dust Bowl,” and that showcases the biggest change perhaps over the course of his career. He is a genuine singer and songwriter now, and another of the “Blues Deluxe Vol. 2” tunes, “24 Hour Blues,” carries on the vibe.
This set, however, is heavy on covers and that appears to be how he wants it, and the band absolutely flies along with him on work like the classic blues romp of “Well, I Done Got Over It.”
Special mention here to the backing singers, Danielle De Andrea and Jade McRae – who Bonamassa later reckons are “two of the best to ever do it” – whose synchronised dancing would put The Scorpions to shame.
But it’s the subtleties of what Bonamassa does that always manage to surprise. On an astonishing rendition of “Driving Towards Daylight,” the piano, the slow build, it’s all here. That they follow it with a cover of “I Want To Shout About It” – which seems to waft in on the salty air of Asbury Park and features a wonderful twin solo between the bandleader and Josh Smith, his long-time collaborator – rather sums it up.
He’s back to the “Dust Bowl” album for “The Last Matador Of Bayonne,” and such a cinematic track benefits greatly from the wonderful drumming of Lemar Carter, while the groovy “Pack It Up” sees Smith and Wynans take centre stage, as if JB is delighted to spread the limelight around.
It’s only after this one that he speaks to the audience, and when he does, you can see his increasing confidence, but also get some sense of his journey, from the small club of the Rescue Rooms to the slick arena rock of today.
To celebrate, he thunders a solo for “The Heart That Never Waits” as if lives depend on it.
He ends the set with two more covers: “It’s Hard But It’s Fair” and Led Zep’s “How Many More Times.” If you asked him, I’d be willing to bet that was his favourite of the night, turned as it is into a huge epic with all of the band involved.
He’s back for one more, though. And after playing “Mountain Time” at the start of this UK run (“they moaned in Wales that they didn’t hear the one they came for,” he jokes from behind those shades), he’s reverted to “Sloe Gin,” that cover that never feels like one, and the one he describes here as “a cheery ditty.” And maybe it’ll never replace “Come On Eileen” at family parties, but it’s a sensational thing.
And those last two words apply to the man himself and this show, because ultimately he might not be as raw and primal as some of the greatest, but in the modern world, no one does this quite like – or quite as well – as Joe Bonamassa.
