George Benson was the soundtrack to my youth – in all those dodgy night clubs in Earls Court and South Kensington all those years ago. Months back, when I saw the advert for his concerts at Hampton Court Palace and the Royal Albert Hall, the only decision was which venue to choose. My partner-in-crime old school buddy must have emailed me at exactly the same moment I saw the ad and our communications crossed.
My only hesitation was that when I recently visited the Royal Albert Hall to see one of my other heroes (Bryan Ferry) I was so disappointed with the sound quality (and, sadly, a voice that hadn’t aged well) that I left at the interval. However, tonight’s concert exceeded all expectations – and may even have bumped Beyonce, Rihanna and a few other megastars off of my top concerts list.
The support act was pretty good – Javier Colon – the winner of the first season of the US series of The Voice. He took to the stage quietly and settled with his guitar while his accompanying singer readied himself beside him. His rendition of Adele’s “I can’t make you love me” was breathtakingly beautiful and he held the audience in his thrall. He played a few of his own tracks and encouraged the audience to meet him at gate 3 for autographs and photos. He was a delightfully charming, humble and very polite young man. With an incredible voice – I won’t be able to listen to “Time after time” again without thinking about his version. His final track – a James Taylor classic - actually made my spine tingle.
After a short interval, the great Mr Benson walked onto the stage looking every inch the confidence, polished professional that he is. He greeted us Brits and London with good grace and humility – so modest. He started – his voice smooth, strong and rich - with “Nature Boy” and the audience were with him in an instant. The backing band were world-class and appeared to be totally enjoying the experience. The second track “Love X Love” had everybody – and I mean everybody – on their feet. I have never seen the like of it before at RAH. And good natured showman George joined in with the gyrations.
I hadn’t realised that he was such a skilled guitar player. And he moved smoothly from upbeat dance numbers to mellow, accomplished jazz and back to soul and even dallied with a little rock and roll as a nod to the Beatles. He played a stunning jazz version of that Irish classic “Danny Boy”. That went down really well.
He read the audience perfectly, a couple of songs for us to dance like mad things, then a couple of slow tracks so we could recover. After all, the majority of the audience were somewhat mature in years.
What fun to dance the way we did back in the 80s! The people in our row even synchronised their movements so as not to bash into the people beside them. The hits came thick and fast – “In your eyes”, “Turn your love around”, “Never give up on a good thing”. We couldn’t believe that we knew the lyrics to every song. And Mr Benson turned up the lights on the audience to encourage us to sing along. And we did. Enthusiastically with waving arms and clapping.
He returned to the stage after rapturous applause from an utterly besotted audience. I was almost in tears as he played “Feel like making love”. Then “Give me the night” had us all dancing again. And he finished with a tribute to Whitney and his rendition of “Greatest love of all”.
His set lasted a full two hours and it seemed to pass in a flash. If you ever get the chance to see this man perform in the future – grab it with both hands. Amazing.
