chris rea, The City Hall, Newcastle Upon Tyne (GB) - Apr 5, 2006

After contracting a near-fatal illness, Chris Rea decided to dedicate the rest of his playing career to The Blues, and the slide guitar in particular. At the time, he was promoting his enormous 11-CD boxed set [Blue Guitars], 137 tracks of blues songs arranged more or less in chronological order of the history of the genre. The album remains one of the most extraordinary of all time, and his gig was a fitting way of demonstrating his skill in the genre, while giving us a new twist on some of his old hits as well. x