CHRIS REA : THE ROAD TO HELL & BACK - THE FAREWELL TOUR

  1. Jazzee Blue
  2. That's The Way It Goes
  3. Where The Blues Come From
  4. Josephine
  5. Work Gang
  6. Head Out On The Highway
  7. Easy Rider
  8. 'Til The Morning
  9. Stony Road
  10. KKK Blues
  11. Julia
  12. Stainsby Girls
  13. Somewhere Between Highway 61 & 49
  14. I Can Hear Your Heartbeat
  15. The Road To Hell
  16. On The Beach
  17. Let's Dance

Label : Universal

Venue : Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK

Recording Date : April 18 & 24, 2006

Release Date : April 24, 2017

Length : 107 minutes

NTSC : 16:9

Review (AllMusic) : Chris Rea was a rock star with the sort of gravel voice that was ideally suited to singing the blues, or was he a blues star who occasionally lent his talent to performing rock. The Road to Hell & Back was his 28th album in total including five different greatest-hits compilations, but was his first live album. Recorded at various venues during his 2006 tour from Warsaw to Moscow and Plymouth, Oxford and Brighton, all the tracks show a tight, together band, the Fireflies led by Chris Rea, not in the best of health but enjoying performing to appreciative, sometimes too polite audiences, who applaud in all the right places (at the end of each song). Amazingly for an artist with such a famous repertoire of songs, he had only ever hit the Top Ten of the singles chart with one song, "The Road to Hell. Pt. 2" and along with its slower precursor, "Pt. 1," is included here along with Chris Rea favorites, "Josephine," "Stainsby Girls," "On the Beach," (on which he broke into some Bob Marley type reggae), "Let's Dance," and his first-ever hit single "Fool If You Think It's Over." Opening the set with a Jools Holland type of boogie-woogie with the track "Jazzy Blue," the band, almost as if in keeping with the politeness of the audiences, play a minimalist set, almost acoustic. "Josephine" takes almost four minutes to warm up, and "Stony Road" chugs slowly along until the guitar breaks in after nearly three minutes, but the tracks are given time to mature and develop. Both "I Can Hear Your Heartbeat" with its Dire Straits type guitar licks, and the two parts of "The Road to Hell" are over ten minutes each and "Stainsby Girls" and "Somewhere Between Highway 61 And 49" are both extended to over eight minutes, the former showing that the band can most definitely rock, and the latter giving the blues a chance to really grind the audience into believing they could really be somewhere in the Mississippi Delta instead of the Moscow Kremlin Palace watching a man from Middlesbrough, a town in the North East of England.

Review (Muziekweb) : The Road To Hell, in 1989 een hit van singer/songwriter en slidegitarist Chris Rea, kreeg een dubbele betekenis toen deze Brit in 2000 ernstig ziek werd. Een lijdensweg volgde waarbij tegenwoordig zijn inmiddels hervonden maar fragiele gezondheid met zware medicijnen in stand wordt gehouden. Dit was de reden voor Rea om het lange en zware toeren vaarwel te zeggen met een laatste Europese tournee langs onder andere Nederland, Zuid-Europa, Rusland en Engeland. Op de live registratie van deze tournee horen we nieuwe versie's van al die typische jaren tachtig hits als Josephine en Fool (If You Think It's Over). Na zijn ziekte besloot Rea ook de bluesmuzikant te worden die hij altijd had willen zijn. Dat laat hij doorklinken in de losse arrangementen en in zijn uitgesponnen gitaarsolo's. Maar het blijft allemaal sfeervol terwijl de extra korrel op zijn luie en donkergruizige stem de melancholieke toon van zijn liedjes alleen maar versterkt. In het hoesje worden de Memphis Fireflies aangekondigd, Rea's nieuwe groep die het ongetwijfeld rustig aan gaat doen maar waarmee we deze integere artiest gelukkig nog niet kwijt zijn. Deze versie heeft een tweede cd met nog eens zes tracks.

Concert Review (BBC) : Chris Rea played to a sell out audience when he played the first date of his farewell tour at Birmingham Symphony Hall. Support for the evening was from Irish singer-songwriter Paul Casey, who played a set of four well received songs, the highlights of which were 'Different Planet' and 'She Could Be' and the new song 'Fires' which featured a sing along contribution from the audience. Chris Rea himself started his two hour long set with two blues songs from his latest albums 'Blue Guitars'. Playing slide guitar and harmonica the five piece band soon hit their stride, and delivered a swinging set. Rea changed to banjo for a radically reworked version of 'Josephine' handing over soloing duties to his keyboard player. His long term band of guitarist Robert Ahwai, drummer Martin Ditchum and bassist Sylvin Marc allowed the songs a new depth and resonance. "His voice has matured into a fully rounded blues voice, more than capable of carrying his songs of heartbreak and redemption." Ben Macnair, site user Rea played a selection of songs from both his newer blues albums, and his older hits. From the new works, songs such as 'Freedom Song' had a new energy, with a rock back-beat and a melodic, keening slide solo that threatened to become 'Freebird'. The chilling 'KKK Blues' on the other hand, featured banjo and dobro, and Senegalese scales to tell the harrowing story of the Ku Klux Klan. From 'Dancing down the Stony Road', one of Rea's first full blues album the band played 'Easy Rider' and the title track. They also showed off their range and interest with the celtic blues song 'My true love and I' which featured a beautiful slide guitar solo showing the influence of Irish pipe playing and violin on his style. Of his older songs, though there was also a wide selection. 'Stainsby Girls' was played, with an instrumental banjo introduction, before the rest of the band joined in, and it became a freeform funk jam at the end. 'I can feel your heartbeat' started as a fast funk tune, before becoming the studio song, and then having a reggae coda tagged onto the ending. The last song of the main set was his classic 'The Road to Hell' which featured excellent performances from all five band members. The standing ovation the band received led to an encore of 'On the Beach' and 'Let's Dance' before a final encore of one of his first hits 'Fool if you think it's over'. The blues that Chris Rea played allowed him to show his full versatility as a performer, and his voice has matured into a fully rounded blues voice, more than capable of carrying his songs of heartbreak and redemption.