Steve Winwood

19th October

This was a strange evenings entertainment.

Steve walked on at 8pm and launched in to a couple of songs the first of which seemed to last forever that set the tone of the whole night.

There was nothing wrong with the music, but it reminded me of 70's excesses with songs with bongos that played on and on melding one in to the other. The notable exception being I'm a man, Higher Love and Gimme Some Lovin'. Not that I have anything against bongos. That said the continuing theme of extrapolated 70's style pop rock continued with solos by each artist that seemed to last 15 minutes a piece. Do bands really still do drum solos? Even more strangely whilst the drum solo was going unlike other bands who use it as an excuse to grab a fresh beer or a pee this band all stood around and watched!

This said there was nothing wrong with each track. Each was tight and masterfully performed with the minimum of fuss and the utmost polish.

The odd thing was that it wasn't engaging. The band came on and performed. Steve spoke at most twice to the crowd. No witty anecdotes. No attempt to form a rapport. To that extent it felt self indulgent: Steve had his mates round and was practicing in his garage.

This was reflected by the crowd who stood for the most part in abject silence with only the faintest of movement of heads nodding to indicate that they were alive rather than a storage depot for manikins. Only at the end with Gimme Some Lovin did anything approaching a spark of life anywhere come forth.

To emphasise the point a rather middle aged gentlemen across from me fell asleep for at least two songs. When he awoke I am not sure he realised the song had changed.

This may seem harsh or even unfair. The truth was it was an OK evenings entertainment. Based on this I certainly wouldn't rush out to buy another ticket which is a shame when this was a well respected musician (rated #33 by Rolling Stone Magaizine in the 100 greatest singers of all time) with a great career behind him.

6/10

Appologies for the poor quality pictures but I was in the balcony for this one... so about a mile from the stage!