Gig Review - Joe Bonamassa Birmingham 19 Mar 2016
I had a great weekend on a flying visit to my son in Birmingham. The reason for this was to get to a gig by Joe Bonamassa who was playing a short tour of the UK, basically he needed to come back to fulfil a commitment on a gig cancelled on the last tour so added in a couple of other dates including Birmingham. Firstly I've never been to the Barclaycard Arena - which was the old NIA but in the world of corporate sponsorship had a makeover a couple of years back and a name change. Joe was quiet funny making reference to this during the gig ;-) The venue was good though, efficient staff, clean, etc. My son had been there for a Slipknot gig and was saying he was worried it would be too big for JB but said "The seating plan when I bough the tickets though indicated a completely different layout." It was cleverly done. They moved the stage to end so that essentially it was turned into a semi-circular amphitheatre of about 4,000 capacity. It work...