During a sold-out concert in Bonn, 81-year-old Mitch Ryder proves that his voice is still powerful. With an excellent, versatile band and strong solos, he delivers a varied set full of rock, blues, and ballads.
Personal stories and musicality make it a top-notch evening.
Gernot Mangold (Sounds-Of-South) and André Wittebroek (Blues Magazine) often collaborate when they attend the same concerts. This is the case again. The report is by Gernot, supplemented with comments from André.
For the second time, Mitch Ryder is on tour with his new band and tonight ensures a sold-out venue at Harmonie Bonn. In the two-hour concert, the now 81-year-old Mitch Ryder shows that his voice has lost none of its power. In the opening song ‘Hot House’, this becomes immediately clear, and compliments go to the sound engineer, whose vocals are fine but not too dominant, while the rest of the band comes through well and everything is perfectly balanced and transparent.
The fact that he sits for the entire concert does not detract from the audience, given his fragile physique. Mitch Ryder is supported by a more than excellent band that breathes new life into most of the older songs.
Laura Chavez (see interview in Bluesmagazine) and Sean Athens (who just won the German Blues Awards with his own band) alternate fantastic solos with their guitar playing in very different styles, allowing them to blend wonderfully in their duels to great enthusiasm from the audience.
French keyboard player Léa Worms has her big moment in the ballad ‘If You Need The Pain’, during which the other band members have left the stage. Sung with restraint, emotion, and vulnerability by Mitch, accompanied by subtly fitting, very sensitive piano playing.
Her solo in The Doors cover ‘Soul Kitchen’ is also magnificent. Mitch explains that he saw a new band playing in Los Angeles that he thought was fantastic: The Doors! Hence, one of their songs in the setlist.
Frenchman Denis Palatin on drums and German Tomek Germann on bass provide a groovy, to-the-point rhythm here—and throughout the entire show—on which the rest of the band can excel. Another notable feature is that beautiful, surprising breaks are incorporated into many songs.
The varied setlist ensures a very entertaining performance. From rocky (Hot House, Betty Too Tight, Tough Kid, One Hair, Nice and Easy), hard rock (Long Neck Goose), ballads (Red Sky Eyes, Try A Little Tenderness, If You Need The Pain), funky, groovy (Lyberty), jazzy (Star No More), bluesy (Bang Bang), and even some country in Everybody Looses. Between songs, Mitch explains what they are about, peppered with dry humor, and it is often very personal, including the low points in his life such as the drug and alcohol addictions he overcame about thirty years ago. The lyrics in the music are very important to him.
This tour will be followed by recording a new album with the current band members that Thomas Ruf put together last year. The new live and DVD album ‘Song From The Road’, which is being released this month, was also recorded with them.
