British singer John Waite made a rare Western New York appearance at the new concert venue Braun’s Concert Cove in Akron, NY, Saturday night. Besides his solo work, John is also known for his work with The Baby’s in the 1970s and Bad English in the late 1980s. His band consisted of Rondo on drums, Tim Hogan on bass and the newly recruited Kerri Kelli on guitars.
John opened up the set with maybe my favorite song of his, “Change” from the 1982 “Ignition” album. From there, he mixed up the set list with the Bob Dylan cover “All Along the Watchtower” to plenty of Baby’s songs. Kelli (formerly of Alice Cooper and Vince Neil), who just joined the band about 10 days prior, fit in nicely with both Hogan and Rondo supporting the underrated Waite on vocals.
John also donned the guitar for The Dylan cover, “Whenever You come Around,” and “When I see You Smile.” In fact, John sang a capella and the monitors were turned down at the end of the Bad English classic as the crowd filled in the chorus. It showed how clean and powerful his voice still is after all of these years.
Waite looked and sounded amazing for a man who recently celebrated his 60th birthday. One of those vocalists from an era that doesn’t garner enough respect and kind of gets lost in the shuffle a little bit. The only thing I was disappointed in was that he didn’t include more Bad English in his set.
Setlist:
Change
Get Back on my Feet Again (Baby’s cover)
Better Off Gone
Everytime I Think of You (Baby’s cover)
All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)
Whenever You Come Around (Vince Gill cover)
If You Ever Get Lonely
Encircled
Mr. Wonderful
Sweet Rhode Island Red
Missing You
Midnight Rendezvous (Baby’s cover)
Drum solo
Head First (Baby’s cover)
Encore:
When I see You Smile (Bad English cover-John without band)
We would like to thank Ross Catalino from Back 2 Back Entertainment for allowing BackstageAxxess to review the show.
