We made a spur-of-the-moment decision to attend the Joe Bonamassa concert at the Embassy Theatre last night. I'd heard he was coming to town months ago, but actually thought it was going to be sometime when we were gone. Well, my coworker shows up to work last night and says something about it, then as I'm driving home I hear them play one of his songs on local radio and.... I'll be darned if I didn't get home at 6 pm, jump on the computer and buy 2 tickets! Oddly enough, there were only a handful of tickets left, but I got Section G, row F, seats 1 & 2. These are on the end of a row in the lower balcony right dead center of the stage! These are seats I try to get when pre-ordering for shows at the Embassy! It's a perfect spot.
Jane was watching the grandkids so I changed my clothes, picked up some
As I said on Facebook... "Thoughts as my ears hobbled out of the Embassy last night: Joe Bonamassa does subtlety very well; he just doesn't do it very often! With one pause to introduce the band and inform us the mayor called him to declare it 'Joe Bonamassa Day' in Fort Wayne, he otherwise completely assaulted the packed house with a level of speed and sound that sent hair and jaw flailing opposite and by the time skin reattached to bone you could do nothing but grin and go home. It was fast, it was furious, and it was great fun (had by all). Whew!"
Yes, the other musicians were superb as well (keys, bass, horns, drums, and 2 singers); sure, Joe can tend to drag things out a bit much at times; but he went through guitar after guitar after guitar and just blazed a constant fire of frenetic energy almost non-stop for 2 hours. And just like the first time we saw him 10 years ago, he rarely spoke at all other than a 'thank you' here and there and to introduce the band. It was pretty near a blues/rock guitar players dream.
The only real downer of the night was the Embassy itself. I can overlook the cramped seating and teeny-tiny bathrooms since it's a beautiful old place, and it was great that they added some space for concessions, but WHO IN THE WORLD DECIDED THEY SHOULD STOP SELLING ALCOHOL AFTER THE SHOW STARTS!!!!!! We weren't even an hour into it and I went out to get a beer and all I could get was water or pop. Not that I NEEDED to drink, but are you serious!?! I will have to think long and hard before I fork over a couple hundred dollars for a show at this stinking place again. Maybe that explains why people want to build a new downtown arena! I don't know, I think it's pretty piss poor for a place to charge that much money and then only offer water and sodas.
But enough about that. It was a fun evening and I'm glad we went.