This is the second time I want to feature Chris Rea here (first time: click here). The reason was that today I surfed into a video on youtube from a concert I watched about 25 years ago on television:  Chris Rea on a festival from the Loreley – that famous rock on the river Rhine-  that was live broadcasted by Germany’s WDR Rockpalast. By the way, Dire Straits also played there a festival gig some years before (summer 1979). It is a beatiful place and those summer evening concerts were always a highlight.

The song is called Bombollini, a song from his 1984 album Wired to the Moon. I never liked this album that much because it sounds somewhat like a cheap and quick production to me although some of the songs were real gems. This song was the openener of the concert, and it always reminded me of the way Dire Straits used to open their concert at that time with Ride across the River: similar pace, similar groove, similar instrumentation to some extend -the flute, the bass marimba sound – … who knows, Chris Rea is known to be a huge Mark Knopfler fan.

The song builds up more and more, ending with a guitar solo on Chris’ ’63 fiesta red Strat nick-named Pinky, played through a silver-face Fender Twin for the clean sounds and an old blonde Fender Bandmaster amp.

But now enjoy: