I foolishly assumed that when I saw Roy Harper six years ago when he was a mere 78 years old that I would not see him live again. Wrong - here I was at the Symphony Hall seeing part 2 of his 'final tour'. I had been warned that he was having trouble with singing the high notes but things looked bleak when he came on stage with a heavy cold but this is Roy Harper and he still managed to deliver an admirable performance assisted by son Nick on guitar.
Highlights for me were 'Another Day' early in the set, 'Hallucinating Light' (those two are my favourite Harper songs), 'When an old cricketer leaves the crease' and surprisingly 'I hate the white man' which he had brought back for the times we live in. It was a curtailed version with a couple of verses missing but good to hear all the same.
Nick was excellent fitting in with Roy's sometimes unpredictable delivery and playing some superb guitar solos on a couple of tracks including 'Same Old Rock' which was a great finish also because it is a great song and Roy's voice seemed to cope really well with most of it. A slightly maudlin encore of a new song 'I've enjoyed my life' and then there was a raptorous reception before heading off into the Birmingham rain of storm Amy. That must be the last Harper gig I see and I'm glad I did.
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