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Richard Thompson

Venue: Liverpool Philharmonic
Town: Liverpool
Date: 1st March 2013
Website: http://www.richardthompson-music.com/

To use a horribly well-worn cliché, Richard Thompson is like a fine wine, he gets better and better with age. I first saw him play live, as member of Full House-era Fairport Convention, in 1970 and was amazed by his guitar playing on pieces such as "Sloth" and "Poor Will And The Jolly Hangman". In the intervening forty three years [!], I have seen him perform on numerous occasions, in various permutations as a solo artist, as part of a duo and as a band leader and I have always been enthralled by his incredible talent as a singer, songwriter and guitarist. However, even by his own exceptionally high standards, tonight's performance was something special. Not for nothing is this called "The Electric Tour" and in the words of opening act Robert Ellis, Richard and band were "on fire".

The current band is, according to Richard a classic rock trio but with a folk slant : folk/funk or funk/trad. as he puts it. Richard told us that he dreams of power trios like The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream [more of which later].

The band consists of Richard [guitar/vocal], Taras Prodaniuk[ bass and harmony vocals] and Michael Jerome [drums, percussion and harmony vocals]. There may only be three of them on stage but the power of this "commando raid" band is intense.

Richard is touring on the back of his recently released, Buddy Miller-produced album "Electric", which must rate as one of the best of his long and illustrious career. New songs such as the thunderous "Stuck On The Treadmill", "Sally B", "Salford Sunday", "My Enemy", "Stony Ground "and "Good Things Happen To Bad People" have all the hallmarks of classic Richard Thompson and he and the band tore into them with great gusto. The rhythm section of Michael and Taras provided a muscular, funky platform for Richard to launch into a series of incredible extended guitar solos. They truly were on fire!

Whilst it was great to hear the new material in a live setting, Richard did not overlook his extensive [and wonderful] back catalogue. Among the "classics" were stunning versions of "For Shame Of Doing Wrong" [from my favourite album by Richard and Linda, "Pour Down Like Silver"]; "Wall Of Death" and "Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed" [both from all-time classic album "Shoot Out The Lights"]; the rousing, crowd-pleasing "Tear Stained Letter"[ from "Hand Of Kindness"] ;the jazzy "Al Bowlly's In Heaven" [from "Daring Adventures"] which featured great bass and drum solos from Taras and Michael; the bitter, resigned "Can't Win" from 1988's "Amnesia" [written during the Thatcher era and one of Richard's most overtly political songs] and the beautiful solo acoustic ballad "Beeswing"from 1994's "Mirror Blue" [ from which Richard also performed "Easy There, Steady Now"].

I mentioned above that Richard referred to dreaming about power rock trios such as Cream. The surprise of the evening was that Richard and band unexpectedly launched into a cover of Cream's "White Room", complete with an amazing wah-wah guitar solo . Eat your heart out, Eric!

Richard and band played more than two hours of exhilarating, powerful folk-rock music and received a standing ovation from the enthusiastic Liverpool crowd. As I said above, he just gets better and better.

Peter Cowley
Pictures Neil King(Not taken at gig)