Romance Planet West Hollywood Concert reviews
Expertly blended rock, blues and soul
The Romance Planet played a two-hour set, including a two-song encore. They played a new song that is not on the album, six well-chosen covers, and six songs from their new album. The band included Oteil Burbridge on bass, his brother Kofi Burbridge on keyboards and flute, drummers JJ Johnson and Tyler Greenwell, tenor sax man Kebbi Williams, trumpeter Maurice Brown, trombonist Saunders Sermons, and back up singers Mike Mattison (who is lead singer in the Derek Trucks Band), and Mark Rivers. The sound was generally excellent, never too loud.
Susan was in great voice, reminding me of Bonnie Bramlett in that she comfortably merged influences from blues, soul, gospel and rock. Derek as always displayed an incomparable slide tone and technique, channeling Duane Allman, and a variety of influences in his picked solos, including John McLaughlin. She also played tasty lead breaks on several songs and dueted with Derek on one. Solo opportunities were given to all of the musicians, and the jams were interesting.
Their version of Uptight was awesome, as Oteil Burbridge played a six string bass and laid down a rock solid rhythmic foundation for his own solo (on which he accompanied himself scat singing) and an extended drum duet. It was great that they covered Comin' Home, a Delaney and Bonnie song, because D&B are under-appreciated and this line up can do justice to their sound. However, I have to say they dropped the ball. The first half of the song was great, but when they got to the second part where Bonnie Bramlett does a call and response against the horn riff that this band is equipped to duplicate to thrilling effect, this band instead elected to go with a jazzy flute solo -- an odd and disappointing choice.