La prensa inglesa sin piedad, sin fanatismo y sin considerar que no es frontman, que no es cantante le pega al show de Ronnie con dos estrellitas...
Ronnie Wood review – Chuck Berry tribute show neither rocks nor rolls
2 / 5 stars2 out of 5 stars.
Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
Lulu and Imelda May bring powerhouse guest vocals but the Rolling Stone can’t match up in this mediocre homage
Ian Gittins
Ronnie Wood performing at Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
Valiant rather than virtuoso … Ronnie Wood. Photograph: Richard Young/REX/Shutterstock
The tribute album is a strange beast. While invariably well-intentioned, its unwanted side effect is often to show up the relative limitations of the artist paying homage and Ronnie Wood’s new album, Mad Lad, is a textbook example.
The record is a set of roistering live covers of key moments from the career of Chuck Berry, whom Wood feels “never got his dues”. This is a moot point: Berry was certainly ripped off in his early years, but the fact he is now regarded as the progenitor of rock’n’roll, and left an estate of $50m when he died in 2017, confirms that respect has since been paid in full.
The bigger problem is that while Berry fired out his lewd, carnal riffs like jabs to the solar plexus, Wood’s celebration – now being toured around the UK – is essentially rather cosy. Despite a crack band in which pianist Ben Waters figures large, this show soon settles into a chugging, easy groove that lacks the fire Berry had live even in his 80s.
Ronnie Wood with his Wild Five.
Too cosy … Ronnie Wood with his Wild Five. Photograph: RMV/REX/Shutterstock
In the Faces and the Rolling Stones, the personable Wood has been one of rock’s great sidekicks for more than 50 years, but he is no charismatic frontman. While his love for Berry is palpable, his flat vocal on Little Queenie is valiant rather than virtuoso. On Don’t You Lie to Me, he is near inaudible, buried beneath the gnarly 12-bar riffs.
These failings are thrown into stark relief when two powerhouse guest vocalists arrive to take the evening up a notch. Imelda May is a prodigious force of nature, turning in a Janis Joplin-like performance to enliven Wee Wee Hours, while Lulu wraps her ever-formidable pipes with reliable precision around Berry’s Christmas song, Run Rudolph Run.
With a Mike Figgis-directed documentary of his life, Somebody Up There Likes Me, also out now, Ronnie Wood is having a bit of a moment and inching towards national treasure status. But the kindest thing to say about this lumpy tribute is that it might send listeners duckwalking back to the timeless originals.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/22/ronnie-wood-review-chuck-berry
