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ROBIN TROWER
Mean Fiddler, London 16 April 2005
After making his name in the late 1960s and 1970s with Procul Harem, Robin
Trower went solo and carved out a successful career, particularly in the
USA, as something of a blues guitar hero. Though he continues to record to
this day, he is still perhaps best known for the albums that he released in
the 1970s, including ‘Long Misty Days’, ‘In City Dreams’ and particularly
‘Bridge of Sighs’. Now in his 60th year, he and his band were back in the UK
for the first time in some years and it is some credit to his following that
despite an extensive tour that takes him around the provincial circuit, a
central London date at the Mean Fiddler was still sold out.
With the Mean Fiddlers inconvenient early curfews on a Saturday night, it
was surprising that proceedings didn’t kick off until 8:30PM, when Trower,
vocalist Davey Pattison, bassist Dave Bronze and drummer Pete Thompson took
up their instruments and got things underway with ‘Too Rolling Stoned’. The
amount of equipment on stage seemed tiny compared to most bands that play
that venue, but they still packed a good punch.
With Trower promoting his latest album ‘Living Out of Time’, the setlist
included a good number of new tunes. Starting with ‘Sweet Angel’ and ‘What’s
Your Name’ both of which were rather short in length and rather
straightforward bluesy numbers. ‘Rise up like The Sun’ from the 20th Century
Blues album continued in the same vein before ‘Daydream’ gave Robin another
opportunity to perform another longish solo. Vocalist Davey Pattison took a
break while Trower gave a case study in the playing of a blues solo,
grimacing his way through a series of harmonic and making ample use of the
whammy bar on his Stratocaster.
Clearly appreciating the warmth of the crowd reaction, Trower thanked them
and then introduced the title track of the new album. I say new album, but
the album has been out in the States for over 18 months and has only
recently been re-mixed and re-packaged for a European release. Then Trower
himself took over the microphone himself for a rendition of ‘Breathless’
before the band moved into another couple of classic from the ‘Bridge of
Sighs’ album.
The lively and more upbeat ‘Day of the Eagle’ got the crowd
going and then Trower’s closing solo milked the crowd’s anticipation as he
teased them and eventually bridged into ‘Bridge of Sighs’ itself. Davey
Pattison’s vocal delivery was perfect and echoed perfectly the sound of
Trower’s long-time and now sadly deceased vocalist James Dewar, but Robin’s
famous lengthy solo seemed to lack drama, though the Mean Fiddler audience
lapped it up.
The remainder of the set consisted of a couple more new songs, a long slow
blues number, featuring another great Trower solo spot and then a further
cut from ‘Bridge of Sighs’ to close. Even though it was close to the
expected curfew time of 10PM, the audience clearly wasn’t going to let the
band leave without playing at least one encore. Amazingly they managed to
find time to play two before the lights went up. All in all, a fine show
from one of Britain’s best-known and most enduring bluesmen.
Setlist (approx): Too Rolling Stoned / Sweet Angel / What's Your Name / Rise
Up Like The Sun / Daydream / Living Out Of Time / Breathless / Day of the
Eagle / Bridge of Sighs / Close Every Door / I Want You to Love Me / Please
Tell Me / Little Bit of Sympathy
Encores: Come to Me / Secret Place
Review: Charlie Farrell
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