Bones were expected to join Jeff Beck for this Paris date, but for whatever reason the duo are nowhere to be seen. Instead, Beck plays the instrumentals with a stripped-down band, bringing Jimmy Hall onstage whenever a voice is required. Whatever happened to the original plan, what we get is a more traditional Jeff Beck concert.
And what a guitarist he remains. At 72, El Becko seems to have acquired even greater control over an instrument he mastered decades ago. The tone is unmistakable, but it is the phrasing and the tiny details that make his playing so extraordinary. A note bent slightly out of shape, a change in attack, a sudden flicker of vibrato: his hands seem capable of altering the character of a sound after he has already played it. The old line about making a guitar speak is a cliché but with Beck, it is simply accurate.
Rhonda Smith on bass and Jonathan Joseph on drums give him the kind of formidable backing band he routinely surrounds himself with, while the set reaches across his solo career, back to The Yardbirds and into a handful of covers. Jimmy Hall brings some welcome grit to the vocal numbers, but songs and singers inevitably become secondary. The repertoire is the treasure chest, Jeff Beck's guitar is the jewel.
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