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> Login to your account > RegisterJOE BONAMASSA
From page 87 of Classic Rock Magazine November 2006
Cover of November 2006 issue.
Borderline, London
Having started playing blues guitar at the age of four, at the ripe old age of 29 Joe Bonamassa is now arguably among maybe the best 20 or so exponents in the world.
The upstate New York native’s latest album You & Me represents a step towards the rock mainstream. And while in tonight’s show there are moments of true greatness, it’s only in fits and starts that Bonamassa’s compositional skills match his breathtaking fretboard flurries and deft displays of ringing harmonics.
Six minutes of superfluous slide guitar noodling precede one of the night’s finest songs, The River , its very indulgence seemingly the reason that Bonamassa is so worshipped by the blues cognoscenti. And while that’s all fine and good in front of 250 disciples at a steamy Borderline, it’s not something he’d get away with in the arenas of the world. An encore of ZZ Top’s Just Got Paid that segues into a powerful instrumental snippet of Zeppelin’s Dazed And Confused ends a mostly impressive 105 minutes on a high.
As long as his development continues, wherever Joe Bonamassa chooses to go from here is completely up to him. The world is at his feet.
Dave Ling
