British Blues Night
Review thanks to Riccardo D'Ancona

BRITISH BLUES NIGHT – A REVIEW

On November 5^th 2004 in St.Albans the Bluesbreakers tour stopped, luckily the show has been recorded and it is the first one to surface to fans attention. The recording is a great audience one,with stereo microphones very hard to distinguish from a Soundboard (the occasional whistle on the side,or closeness of applauses).Other than that all instruments and vocals are in the front row and there is a good balance between trebles and bass sounds. This 3 cd set comes from Japan and features Stan Webb’s Chicken Shack opening the set on disc one for a good hour with known tracks as The Thrill is gone, Reconsider Baby and I’d rather go blind. On disc two John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers enter the scene, 8 tracks are played with I woke up this morning and Hideway Medley, before Mick Taylor is introduced by John Mayall for the last 2 songs on cd 2: Taken from Blues from Laurel Canyon Somebody’s acting like a child features a nice soaring solo by Mick.After that Mick says: I’m gonna sing this to give the Boss a rest. Than a 12 minutes Late at Night is played.It is different from previous versions because a full band is backing Mick now. John Mayall’s organ and Buddy Wittington on second guitar let Mick play a solo with more focus than before. Singing ‘You were such a distraction-such a fatal attraction’ with two voices (the other doesn’t seems to be John Mayall,probably Buddy).

Next John Mayall says:let’s settle down with some solid grooves and runs into No days off from his album to be purchased only at JohnMayall.com. The song is “interrupted” by Micks classic Can’t you hear me knockin’.A short version  less than 4 minutes long,before No days off reprise. Another song from Laurel Canyon follows,it is Walking on Sunset, a very tight version with Buddy on rhythm guitar. And then from Crusade it is an 8 minute version of Pretty Woman followed by Room to move an everlasting song that displays John Mayall mouth organ proficency. After the song ends John Mayall screams:The Bluesbreakers Long may they rule! They all go away to come out  for the musicians introduction, done by John Mayall; at this point Mick Taylor introduces Mayall saying: He is still my Boss. John Mayall takes the mikeand remembers the audience about his site, then Mick adds: I have a site too, it is called 6 strings and a plank of wood dot com.

It is time for the encore:JB Lenoir’s Mama Talk to your daughter, a nice version indeed, that ends the concert. As the first audio of the Mayall-Taylor 2004 tour I consider this a very valuable and enjoyable recording, hopefully the first in many to come out.

Riccardo D’Ancona