Manchester Academy
review and photos courtesy of Alan Howard
Tonight,
Robin Trower and Aynsley Lister gave their audience, in Manchester, a night
to remember!
This day
being a Bank Holiday in the UK, the weekend traffic on the motorway from
London to Manchester had been horrendous. So much so that it sounded, speaking
with Pete and Davey before the show, like the band had had little or no
time to sound check. But there was some slightly more concerning news.
Sometime after the gig in London, Glenn had had a fall and taken a knock.
He would play tonight’s show, regardless. It sounded quite serious, but
then again, was this a Thompson / Pattison wind-up?
Would the
guys make a joke out of such misfortune or for that matter would they have
had time to organise the bar stool now carefully positioned in front of
Glenn’s bass rig? Er, no, definitely not! For about one nano-second,
I panicked, worrying the injury might be more serious than Pete and Davey
were letting on?
Cue Aynsley. The band tore into their opener ‘Falling Down’ [no pun intended]
with customary gusto. The set, a much rockier affair tonight, was somewhat
curtailed albeit we were treated to two knock-out blows.
To the
head, Aynsley’s killer tune ‘With me tonight’. I defy any Trower fan not
to fall in love with its fabulous construction of light, shade and ‘a-chord-sequence-to-die-for’.
What a number, my personal Lister set favourite.
To the
heart, a tune called ‘Angel O’ Mine’, tonight making a rare appearance
on this tour. Great stuff!
Cue the
RTB. I can report Glenn came out of the blocks first, onto the stage looking
his usual ‘cool as a cucumber’ self. No stretcher case, phew! He dished
out every note effortlessly, serving it up with oodles of his usual helpings
of professionalism, playfulness and panache.
