Steve Winwood
Leamington Assembly Hall
14th July, 2009

View: standing, centre, 20 metres back

Sneakily scheduled for 2000 hometown Brummie fans in this beautifully refurbed art deco hall, it’s like being down the front of his other UK gigs this year: Falmouth Week and Cropredy. He kicks off with I’m A Man, and boy does that Hammond swirl. He revisits Blind Faith to poignant, wall-shaking effect, reaching for a large glass of merlot to toast his success, despite singing that he Can’t Find His Way Home. But this is no wallow in past glories. There are new songs, and old-school purists are shaken by the creeping jazz-funkisation of the past 40 years, a triumph of freshness and relevance, the aptly unpredictable greatest moment coming with Dirty City, a squad reshuffle with the boss taking up guitar to demonstrate his utter mastery of the Clapton Play-In-A-Decade Songbook.

Reviewed by Derek Hammond
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