Glenn Hughes
Robin 2, Bilston
Concert review and photos by Ian Harvey

With his new supergroup Black Country Communion riding high in the album charts, Glenn Hughes returned to his roots, both musical and geographical, as he brought his latest solo tour to the Robin.

Over the past few years the Robin has become a home from home for the Cannock-born former Deep Purple, Trapeze and Black Sabbath singer, known to fans worldwide as the “Voice of Rock”.

See our gig photo gallery to the right

Last night Hughes treated the venue to a show that leaned almost entirely on his hard rock output rather than the funk rock which has been his stock in trade of late, although some funk couldn’t help creeping in.

Starting as he meant to go on with an incendiary Muscle and Blood from the Hughes Thrall album, he delivered on his promise to be “a lean, mean rock machine” after rediscovering his rock roots with Black Country Communion whose debut album is at number one in the UK rock charts.

In a roundabout way he performed a Black Country Communion song last night, playing the 1970 Trapeze classic Medusa, which BCC has covered on its new album.

Elsewhere Hughes and his band rocked hard and heavy through a variety of songs both familiar and some rarely, if ever, performed.

So as well as solo staples like Can’t Stop The Flood and Soul Mover, we also got an immense version of Trapeze’s Keepin’ Time (dedicated to Mel Galley, Hughes’ late friend Andy Attwood and Ronnie James Dio among others) and Deep Purple’s Sail Away, plus a version of Purple’s Burn to close the show which soared into the stratosphere.

Steppin’ On saw Hughes completely unable to resist a quite over the top funky workout, but mostly he delivered on his promise to be rock to the core, at 58 years of age an energetic bundle more than a match for the young bucks backing him up in his band.

“This is where I come from, this is where it all started for me,” he told fans before joking that the difference between Los Angeles, where he now lives, and the Black Country was that here he’d walk down the street and someone would shout at him: “Who are you lookin’ at?”!

Hughes hopes to return to the Midlands in a short while with a one-off Black Country Communion concert set to be confirmed for a Wolverhampton venue around Christmas.

Setlist:
Muscle and Blood
Touch My Life
Orion
Sail Away
Medusa
You Kill Me
Can’t Stop The Flood
Crave
Don’t Let Me Bleed
Keepin’ Time
Steppin’ On
Soul Mover
_________
Addiction
Burn

Music photography by Ian Harvey / RocktasticPix