Laurence Jones, with support from Amy Eftekhari (his finacée), thrilled the fans in attendance at The Stables in Wavendon, Milton Keynes. This was part of his solo acoustic tour at venues around the UK.
The Stables was first built by Jonny Dankworth & Cleo Lane in 1970, before Milton Keynes even existed, with the current building erected in 2000, with an update in 2007.
First up we had Amy Eftekhari, who first met Laurence in 2015 at the launch for his ‘What’s It Gonna Be’ album in Leamington Spa, where Amy was also doing some backing vocals.
She started with ‘Patience’ – a song written earlier this year which was a lovely story led ballad with Amy’s plaintive & passionate vocals, followed by ‘My Dream’ with an ethereal guitar start with Amy kicking in with emotive vocals, sung with passion.
As Amy explained she was originally a session singer in London, working with with artists like Beverley Knight, as a backing singer, who sang at Royal Albert Hall. She finally this year released a new EP ‘This Moment’ 15 years after her last EP ‘All the Words’
Amy got the audience involved on ‘What’s Going On’ a great cover sung with passion, and afterwards said “Don’t die with your music still in you”.
She then gave us ‘Knocking on Heavens Door’ a slow tempo song with evocative vocals and gentle guitar chords to accompany, and then her final song ‘Your Eyes’ written about Laurence living beyond the next day when he was really ill struggling with Crohn’s disease, and sung with passion by Amy.
Next up was Laurence on acoustic guitars, rather than his electric when he played with his band. As Laurence explained his solo album ‘On My Own’ is taking him back to his blues roots.
He started with ‘One Life’ a great slide guitar led song (a feature throughout the evening) with Laurence’s bluesy strident vocals and foot drum, and getting into the blues!
This was followed by ‘Ain’t coming Back No More’ (as Laurence said the Francis Rossi song) a great high tempo blues song with excellent guitar picking with his effective vocals and foot stomping tempo.
He talked about his Crohn’s and changes he needed to make including setting up his own record label Ron Records, which was setup in memory of his grandad who was a great supporter early in his music career. His doctor had to put him on special diet which has helped him put on a couple of stones.
Next was the title track from his new album ‘On My Own’ with its great stomping tempo and powerful guitar picking with strong bluesy vocals. This was followed by a Robert Johnson song which influenced his early songs ‘Come into my Kitchen’ with powerful slide guitar, great picking and foot drum. The vocals in very early blues style aka Robert Johnson.
Laurence has always included a song from his guitar hero Jimi Hendrix and this time we had the acoustic version of ‘Voodoo Child’ with strident vocals, excellent slide guitar & picking with the song including a section from Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love & Blind Faith’s ‘Can’t Find My Way Home’.
‘Thunder in the Sky’ was his first song written and fans favourite but this version was different with its Spanish guitar influence. It is still very anthemic in this extended acoustic version. Then we had a new song played live the first time with ‘Lenny’ a Stevie Ray Vaughan instrumental with a slow mellow start with heavy string picking.
Going back to 2015 Laurence played ‘What’s it Gonna Be’ the title track from 2015 album with drum backing with powerful strident vocals with slide guitar & picking.
Amy then joined Laurence for a few songs including ‘This Moment’ which was great duet with powerful vocals from both with Laurence on guitar, followed by ‘I Can’t forget about You’ with Laurence with great guitar picking with passionate vocals from Amy. The final song in this section was ‘Let the Good Times Roll’
With Laurence back solo he gave us a Gary Moore song ‘You Know I Love You’ with passionate and strident vocals with effective slide with a tub-thumping beat, with the last song dedicated to Amy with ‘Beautiful’ with its evocative and passionate vocals and great high tempo guitar picking.
After lots of applause Laurence came back for an encore with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ with powerful bluesy vocals and slide guitar & picking.
Laurence Jones is definitely worth catching live especially having gone back to his blues roots, with his powerful voice and brilliant guitar playing!