Bonnie Raitt
BST Summer Time
Hyde Park, London
Sunday 15thJuly 2018
SET LIST:
Unintended Consequence of Love
Need You Tonight
Everybody’s Crying for Mercy
I Believe I’m In Love With You
Devil Got My Woman
Love Letter
Something To Talk About
Angel From Montgomery
Nick of Time
Burning Down The House
Thing Called Love
BAND (those known):
Bonnie Raitt, electric guitar, vocals
George Marinelli – guitar
Ricky Fataar – drums
Ivan Neville- keyboards
Great Oak Stage: Bonnie Raitt
This is the first time I’ve seen Bonnie Raitt. It brought back a memory. Tower Records, Piccadilly Circus. I’d guess it was 1989, and I had John Lee Hooker’s the Healer. I’d been impressed with his duet with Bonnie Raitt on I’m In The Mood. I started looking through the blues section. The guy who ran the jazz and blues section came over:
‘What are you looking for?’
’Bonnie Raitt.’
‘This is the blues section. Country’s over there,’ he spat out with distaste.
‘She’s been recording with John Lee Hooker,’ I said mildly.
He exploded, ‘She uses pedal steel. No one who uses pedal steel goes in MY blues section.’
‘OK …’
‘And she’s got red hair! That’s country. MY blues section! No way!’
I do like opinionated record store guys. I’d guess that’s when I bought Nick of Time.
Well, nowadays Bonnie does blues … Skip James’ Devil Got My Woman, straight AOR rock like Unintended Consequence of Love,Americana meets country Angel from Montgomery, semi-reggae like Have A Heart (sadly not today), folk like Dimming of The Day and she covers Talking Heads too. Eclectic and good at all of it.
The show starts with two songs from the most recent album, Dig In Deep, Unintended Consequence of Love and Need You Tonight though not my favourite one, All Alone With Something to Say.
She announces Mose Allison’s Everybody’s Crying For Mercy which she had covered way back in 1973.
She covers the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ on I Believe I’m In Love With You. Straight rock.
Then we’re into Skip James’ Devil Got My Woman which I particularly admired … she can do the basic blues.
From a great distance: the TV screen in directsunlight
Bonnie Raitt knows what sort of set to produce on a hot afternoon in a festival setting. It’s mainly R&B and pretty generic (and a tad dull). Stellar players ploughing through less than melodic R&B standards.
Thus the outstanding number has to be John Prine’s Angel from Montgomery with an intro on the lot of women. As good as anything we heard here today from anyone, and so far the best thing in her set. She dedicated it to her mother’s generation to roars of acclaim.
The other big one is Nick of Time because she’s joined by Arnold McCullers who knows how to take a song home.
She’s done Burning Down The House for years. To me it’s stripped of all the quirky rhythmic qualities of the Talking Heads original. A dull version of a great song. Never liked her take on it.
She finishes with John Hiatt’s Thing called love.
She rocked. People grooved. She knows way better than me what to attune to a hot afternoon crowd. But for me it was a dull set. Standouts: Angel From Montgomery, Nick of Time, Devil Got My Woman. Nothing else I much want to hear again.
I’m sure she’s right on her assessment of what to play for a festival crowd, but my Bonnie Raitt playlist has way more interesting and melodic stuff from her: So Long at The Fair, That Song About The Midway, Have A Heart, Dimming of The Day, What Do You Want The Boy To Do. I reckon on a PAUL SIMON crowd they’d go down better than what she did.
Overall, a dullish generic set. Not impressed, disappointed, but it was all highly competent. We even get a Beach Boy, Ricky Fataar from The Flame on drums.
***
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