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Reverend Al Green |
Al, we’re still in love with you
GIG REVIEW: REVEREND AL GREEN
Royal Albert Hall
THE last time I went to the Royal Albert Hall I saw Uri Geller make a seed grow into a tiny sapling while clutched in the hands of a small boy. Treated with wonderment and awe, a hush descended over the crowd.
It was a very different reaction for the visiting Reverend Al Green, who played a sold-out show there last week.
It was all shouts, whistles and stamping for the 58-year-old Memphis preacher, but it was no less a quasi-religious experience for the adoring masses.
They queued up in the aisles, jumping out of their seats in every stall, taking turns to get to the front and be hugged or given a rose by Green, a clapping, dancing god.
In his hey day Al Green was a torso flashing hero – on the cover of his greatest hits album, for example – who once suggested to a lover they “might as well” get married because he was bored (on Let’s Get Married).
Now he’s a messiah type who can’t stop hurling off his jacket at the climax of each song.
It was fitting that he was the highlight of the Arts Council’s month-long R’n’B Season, that also brought Beyonce and John Legend to London.
Candi Staton – normally a big draw on her own – was the support act to what amounted to a lesson in R’n’B’s 50-year history. Green’s medley of historic hits – including The Temptations’ Sugar Pie Honey Bunch and I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, by Otis Redding – gave us an idea of what had shaped him as an artist.
But performing to such a tight schedule – he’s nothing if not a pro, he was out on the dot – there was no room for an encore, and a glaring omission to the set list was Take Me To The River.
Maybe he could have stuck to his own back catalogue, which people had paid £50 to hear.
The presence of Joss Stone and mod-god Paul Weller in the audience showed that R’n’B is not just commercial puff, as some critics unfairly view it, but a genre which has massively influenced modern music.
Green has just finished a new album – only his third pop offering in 30 years – with Willie Mitchell, the man behind the hits Still In Love With You, Tired of Being Alone and Let’s Stay Together. The title track, Everything’s OK, played on Thursday, sounds just as good the old stuff.
Wish I’d got a rose from Al. |
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