Joe Bonamassa
Thursday, November 16th, 2017
State Theater, Ithaca, NY
Our score: 3 out of 5 stars
Guitar virtuoso and area native Joe Bonamassa brought his smoking brand of blues to the bustling college town of Ithaca, NY on November 16th performing to a near capacity crowd inside the historic 1,600 seat venue where JB and company let the music do the talking.
The guitarist and his band took the stage promptly at 8pm without the
aid of an opening act as on this night it would be all JB. The band quickly got down to business opening up the set with “The Train” and quickly moving on to tracks such as “Blues Desperation” and “How Deep This River Runs” all of which earned the group large rounds of applause. As the set progressed further into the evening Bonamassa and company began to stretch their legs with covers of Albert King’s “I Get Evil” and “Angel of Mercy” and Led Zeppelins “Boogie With Stu” and “How Many More Times” which would close out the night’s performance. The front-man provided little to no banter between he and the crowd aside from band introductions which gave a nod to the stellar backing band which currently consists of drummer Anton Fig, bassist Michael Rhodes, keyboardist Reese Wynan’s and several other impressive players.
At times I did find the veteran blues player to be a bit cold and stand offish to the crowd and to his band however it did not seem to put a damper on the night’s festivities. Before the last note rang out it was clear that everyone within the two level theater seemed to be having a great time and enjoyed every minute of the night’s performance. The tour runs through mid December so there is still plenty of time to catch of these great performances.
Set List:
1.) The Train
2.) Mountain Climbing
3.) Blues of Desperation
4.) No Good Place for the Lonely
5.) How Deep This River Runs
6.) Breaking Up Someone’s Home
7.) I Get Evil
8.) Angel of Mercy
9.) Slow Train
10.) Driving Towards the Daylight
11.) Boogie with Stu
12.) Last Kiss
13.) How Many More Times
