Richard Thompson… in a league of his own

POSTED IN Music, Review | TAGS : arts, attic, band, blog, centre, coventry, dream, live, performance, review, richard, show, thompson, warwick
January 31, 2011

On Friday 28th January, 2011, I was lucky enough to see the great Richard

Thompson perform at the Warwick Arts Center in Coventry. He has been a hero of mine for a few years now, and I had seen him perform once before at Symphony Hall in Birmingham back in 2007.

Mr Thompson was in fine form last Friday night, performing with his band. The set was split into two halves. The first featured songs from his latest album ‘Dream Attic‘, and the second half was devoted to his “…greatest…erm…what’s the word?”. His humour shone through as he explained some of the stories behind the songs on the latest album.

He opened the show with the rocking ‘The Money Shuffle‘, also the first track on ‘Dream Attic‘. My personal favourites from his latest offering (‘Burning Man‘, ‘Demons In Her Dancing Shoes‘ and ‘If Love Whispers Your name‘) sounded spectacular, especially the long guitar solo in the latter, but the highlight from this selection of new material for me personally was the fantastic ‘Sidney Wells‘ – the story of a lorry driving serial killer.

After a short interval, Richard Thompson kicked off the second half with a

track from his first solo album from back in 1972 ‘The Angels Took My Racehorse Away‘. He then went into ‘Can’t Win‘ from ‘Amnesia‘, which featured a fabulous extended and blistering guitar solo. I was mesmerised by Mr Thompson’s virtuosity and just transfixed watching his fingers fly over the fretboard as he played that truly great guitar solo. ‘Tear Stained Letter‘ (my wife’s favourite) was, as usual, up tempo and rocked the house with some audience participation. He finished in good fashion with ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight‘.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable performance from a man who gives men a fraction of his 62 years a run for their money. A true living legend – if only people had heard of him.

If you would like to find out more about this great musician and my personal favourite, then visit his official website here. Also why not check out my Spotify playlist of many tracks from his back catalogue here.