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and the next bang bang might be for you”, she scanned the audience to pick out a member of the crowd with a sly grin. A couple more songs from her first album with Bonamassa, “I’ll Take Care Of You” and “Chocolate Jesus” followed. The former is another sultry blues number (just one of the type of songs she excels at). The band were on fine form and played flawlessly. The first song of the night taken from her latest release was the pop-ish “Let’s Get Together”. Despite being the least bluesy track on the album, I do like it’s upbeat, light-hearted feel, and it goes down well tonight. Hart informed us that the lyrics to the song are unfinished, but was left that way at the request of her producer. Speaking of producers, Hart also played “Good Day To Cry”, which was written during the recording of her current album, following the death of Michael Stevens (who was producing the album). It’s a big, soulful ballad with Beth playing keys with a church organ sound. It’s a touching tribute. Elsewhere, Beth Hart swapped the piano for an acoustic bass for two songs with Nichols. The first of which, “Spiders In My bed” was written over 20 years ago. The second, a Billie Holiday cover, “Fine & Mellow”, saw Ransom back behind the kit for some tasty jazz drumming. They both show off her fine bass playing talents. Hart jumped into the crowd for “Waterfalls” and proceeded to walk around the auditorium as she sang, stopping for hugs from visibly emotional fans, many of them in tears. With five of the six encores being ballads, and four of them performed without her band, it was a lopsided end to and otherwise perfect show. Personally, I would have preferred her to go out with a bang, but instead, it was slow wind down, the highlight of the encores being the phenomenal “Love Is A Lie”. Don’t get me wrong, I love Beth Hart, but the ballads needed to be broken up with songs that really show off her incredible vocals, and the songs from “Better Than Home” just didn’t do it for me… with the exception of “Tell Her You Belong To Me”. Overall, I can’t fault Beth Hart and her band. She is one of the most impressive female vocalists out there, and poor encore choices aside, this was a stellar performance, which earned her a justified standing ovation. Review: Colin Plumb Photography: David Jamieson [gallery type='flickr' user_id='132278830@N06' view='photosets' photoset_id='72157675094862001' columns='3' tag_mode='any' sort='date-posted-desc' per_page='26' layout='random' ]]]>
