Only the curfew prevented Bonnie Raitt from teasing her band one more time.
For almost two hours, after opening with the first two tracks of the album she's touring to promote, Slipstream, Raitt had diverted from the running order and was singing whatever felt right. This clearly isn't a problem for her musicians, some of whom have been working with Raitt since her late 1980s "20-year overnight success" breakthrough album Nick Of Time, and the resulting spontaneity, added to the band's sheer grooving proficiency, turned the Clyde Auditorium into somewhere much more intimate.
Before Slipstream, Raitt took a seven-year sabbatical and she's returned singing and playing slide guitar with renewed vigour. Songs from the new album, including a moody blue reading of Bob Dylan's Million Miles and a loping tribute to Gerry Rafferty in Right Down The Line, with Raitt and guitarist George Marinelli trading roadhouse licks, projected a road-worn warmth. Then Raitt, who describes herself as more of a song curator than writer, showed her blues fan's side by requesting ace keyboards player Mike Finnigan's feature, a rollicking romp through Roy Alfred's Yeah, I've Got News For You Baby.
Thing Called Love from Nick Of Time, with its bum-wiggling groove expertly channelled by the marvellous rhythm team of bass guitarist Hutch Hutchinson and drummer Ricky Fataar, was another of the memorable party-down items.
It was two songs from even further back that particularly stood out, though: Angel From Montgomerie, dedicated to Raitt's mum with a superb blend of gravel and honey, and Eric Kaz's classic Love Has No Pride, which Raitt sang like she'd just had her heart torn apart.
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