It’s been a while since we’ve seen the wonderful Eric Bibb live (last time was the Leadbelly Fest at the Albert Hall when he was sharing the stage with many others) and so it was timely that as part of his current UK tour he was appearing at the Apex in Bury St. Edmunds, fast becoming one of our favourite small scale venues. Denise was definitely showing signs of withdrawal symptoms.
Following a pleasant, jazz influenced but not particularly notable opening set from Eric’s ‘middle daughter’ Yana, Bibb and band played an excellent one and a half hour set (plus encores). Particular mention should be made to the excellent Swedish guitarist and long time collaborator Staffan Astner, along with the two backing singers, whose contributions provided some depth and shade to the vocal arrangements.
Understandably focusing on much of his newer material from the excellent album “Blues People” and the Leadbelly tribute “Lead Belly’s Gold”, Bibb was his usual engaging and involving self, an expressive singer and rousing acoustic guitarist. The songs from ‘Blues People’ are particularly strong – ‘Silver Spoon’ an interesting autobiographical take on an itinerant blues player’s life and ‘Rosewood’ a typically moving Bibb ballad based on real life events (Google ‘Rosewood Massacre’…). My only minor niggle is that because his guitar playing is based almost exclusively on a percussive, finger picking style, to me musically his songs can often have a blueprint or pattern to them – but I suspect I’m just not equipped with enough musical nous to always catch the subtleties of his playing. I think we would have both preferred to have heard a few more of the Bibb favourites from his extensive repertoire – there was no ‘In My Father’s House’, ‘Shingle by Shingle’ or ‘Saucer and Cup’, for example.
It was all excellent stuff, but for me the highlights were his take on ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ and the rousing finale based around ‘Don’t Ever Let Nobody Ever Drag Your Spirit Down’ and ‘Needed Time’. You always get your money’s worth with Eric and you can’t argue with a standing ovation – in our experience, you don’t often see that at a venue in Suffolk