Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Veteran British musician Steve Winwood promised to deliver a tasty mix of his distinguished career highlights and, instead, gave an appreciative audience some delightful delicious titbits but left many hungering for more.
The magnificent Bahrain Bay Arena wasn’t packed to the rafters by any means although the lower tiers were buzzing with anticipation as the rock, pop and rhythm & blues icon got the show on the road with a Pearly Queen gem from his Traffic days … perhaps the missing ticket holders were caught up in the Thursday evening congestion and turned back home.
By my reckoning he only played around eight or nine songs (even taking into account a couple of encore numbers) and, unfortunately four of them lasted more than 14 minutes or more each.
It wasn’t what this reviewer or other fans in the audience expected, judging from some of the comments after the show. It should have been ‘all killer and no filler’.
When artists of this stature perform live, it’s almost their duty to make sure everyone leaves feeling completely satisfied. But Steve left out huge portions of his repertoire such as Valerie, Back in the High Life, Roll with It and While You See A Chance.
His tight band seemed to enjoy themselves and there was an impressive Baby Light Up battle of the beats between drummer Richard Bailey and percussionist Edwin Sands, one of the highlights of the show.
Steve showed his prowess on the keyboards and guitar and the vocals, even at the age of 70, were as strong as ever.
There was vintage fare on offer but it felt more like an appetiser and a helping of dessert and, somehow, we all missed the main course.
The Spencer Davis Group smash Keep On Running had the audience dancing in the aisles. If only we’d had more of the same.
That said, one music-lover told me after the show that he would love to see his idol Elton John do two-and-a-half hours of nothing but deep album cuts so, similarly, perhaps diehard fans of Winwood will have loved the show.
I think I’ll stick to his greatest hits live recording available online.
