Robert Cray (guitar, vocals); Dover Weinberg (Hammond B3, keyboards); Richard Cousins (bass); Les Falconer (drums)
The third of fourteen concerts in eighteen days, Robert Cray is once again touring Britain before heading back to America to hit the road again. The now veteran bluesman has maintained an insane touring schedule for something like fifty years. Quite why is anyone's guess, but here he was playing Newcastle City Hall. His old mucker for almost the entire time, Richard Cousins (he did take a short sabbatical way back when), was on Tyneside, as was Hammond B3 man Dover 'White Cliffs' Weinberg, last seen with Cray at Sage Gateshead, and drummer Les Falconer.
Looking nothing like his sixty eight years, a relaxed Cray chatted with the audience in between numbers, the set list drawn from an extensive back catalogue. Phone Booth (from 1983's Bad Influence) suggested Cray was in the mood to play 'the hits' alongside more recent material. Cray's guitar playing is never other than purposeful, direct, telling a story, ditto the impassioned vocals. Guitar and voice as one, Cray changed Stratocasters at a rate of knots, handed yet another one by his guitar tech (scurrying off stage to retune), our man's relationship with his instrument such that he rarely, if ever, resorts to looking down at the fretboard.
One instrumental number, Hip Tight Onions (Cousins' tip of the hat to Booker T), gave Cray the vocalist a brief respite, although one doubted he needed it, then it was back on the soul-blues train. Strong Persuader, the eponymous track from '86 (another of Cray's popular albums), continued the mining of consistently strong material. The City Hall audience wanted more and got it with a two-song encore. And then it was time for Cray to hit the road again. Russell
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