Went along to the last night of Chris Rea‘s farewell tour at the Olympia in Dublin last night… the tickets were one of last year’s Christmas presents, so I’d been looking forward to it for a while!
I hadn’t bought any of his albums for a few years, so I was a little surprised at just how rootsy/bluesy a lot of his recent stuff was… although with post-near-death projects like Blue Guitars under his belt, I don’t suppose I should have been. Not that I was at all bothered by that; I enjoy a good bit of blues guitar as much as the next man (although I can take or leave the lyrics, but that’s true of most of the stuff I like). Julie much preferred the songs from his more chart-bothering days though– “Road to Hell”, “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)”, “Let’s Dance” et al. Even on those, she thought there was a bit too much guitar noodling, and normally I would have agreed, but I didn’t mind it last night… mostly I because I can’t remember the last time I saw a slide guitarist play live, so I was too busy trying to watch and pick up some tips 🙂
Was a wee bit disappointed that he didn’t have anything to say for himself during or afterwards, given the “end of an era” nature of the evening, but maybe he’s just one of those guys who prefers to let his music do the talking. And nobody could begrudge him that.