It’s almost 9.30pm, and Joe Bonamassa has vanished. The night air is hot. We’re in the wings at Théâtre Jean-Deschamps, a vast open-air amphitheatre inside the 13th-century citadel of Carcassonne, a hilltop town in the Languedoc region of southern France. Barely half an hour ago Bonamassa was sitting here on a flight case, Diet Coke in one hand, cigar in the other, chatting to bassist Calvin Turner about this and that. The base-level confidence, perhaps, of someone who’s been gigging professionally since childhood; a man who’d played with John Lee Hooker and BB King by the time he hit puberty.
“We could be talking about cymbal stands at nine-twenty-five p.m.,” he says. “By the time I go on, that’s it. I’m the other guy.”
It’s extraordinarily picturesque here. A gothic stone footbridge leads you over the River Aude from the bistro tables, cathedral bells and cheese shops of Carcassonne’s old town. To reach the castle you ascend narrow, twisty streets past ornate balconies, ‘Tabac’ signs, and peachcoloured houses with tall windows and old wooden shutters. Cicadas scream into the heat. Shrill swallows dart overheard as the sun descends.
In the auditorium, seats are filling. Last night Tom Jones played here, the sounds of Delilah and It’s Not Unusual drifting down the hill and through our hotel window. Tonight, it’s Joe Bonamassa.
Suddenly the lights go down. The audience cheers. The band head out. From across the stage a swift, streamlined shape in Hugo Boss strides out. The gnarly soul-rock swagger of Evil Mama starts up. The suit faces the audience, sunglasses in place: a Matrix character with a Les Paul. It hides a great deal about him. The ‘other guy’ has arrived.
There are two things that tell you
