I finally got to see my musical hero at the Roundhouse on Monday. As Steve Winwood had his first British number one (Keep on Running by the Spencer Davis Group) 45 years ago, I was afraid I would be the youngest member of the audience. The cheer that greeted Higher Love suggested I was not.
What I got was very much what I expected from reading reviews of recent Winwood gigs. There were songs from every period of his career, and he was backed by a band that, with its bongo player and saxophonist, owed a lot to the Traffic line up of the 1970s. His still has that grear voice even after all these years
Songs from his most recent LP, Nine Lives, were well represented and sounded even better live. If anything Winwood was too generous in allowing other members of the band their time in the spotlight, because the highlights of the concert came when he left his Hammond organ, picked up a guitar and went to the front. He blew us away with Dear Mr Fanstasy and Dirty City.
Thanks to Youtube you can enjoy Can't Find My Way Home from Monday evening too. You can even here Steve Winwood talk at the end of the song, which he did not do much at the Roundhouse.
Later. Or there's this.
Hi Jonathan!
ReplyDeleteAlmost 40 years ago I went to the roundhouse for a concert with those albinos - Johnny and Edgar Winter - I still have wonderful memories from this ...
Just read that Steve and Clapton will be doing four concerts at the end of May next year in the RAH!
You might have read from me that my wife and I saw them live this summer in Munich (open air) - the two of them are even more fantastic now than one of them alone ...