A jam-packed Wembley Arena,12,300 fans for the only date outside of the United States for Zac Brown’s Jekyll & Hyde Tour. Following the recent success of the last album (Jekyll & Hyde) which has gathered much acclamation all over Europe, (thanks also to the fact that it is more of a rock album than a country one), the singer / songwriter from Georgia has triumphed in the English capital, (last time he was here was two years ago for the “Country To Country”) with an incredible performance lasting just over two hours. The music starts at 18.30 when Imelda May, a very good rock/boogie singer, is given the task of opening the evening, warming up the audience with her sound, full of rhythm and colour. A short break to prepare the stage and mixer, and then, bang on time at 19.30, Zac appears in front of the Wembley public along with his group, ten members, on a two-storey stage with the rhythm section (drums and percussion) on the top part. He starts off with “Homegrown”, which goes beyond any optimistic prediction regarding the involvement of the London crowd, which obviously loves Zac Brown and has memorised all the lyrics of his songs.
Naturally many songs are taken from the latest album, “Jekyll & Hyde”, but there is also room for some of his biggest hits (“Toes”, “Keep Me In Mind” and “Goodbye In Her Eyes” to mention a few), and some classic British rock songs starting from “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. In addition to these we should also remember “Under The Bridge” (Red Hot Chili Peppers), “Locked Out Of Heaven” (Bruno Mars), “Into The Mystic” (cover of the famous song of the Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison) and the unofficial anthem of Georgia (where Zac Brown comes from) “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” played with such a fighting spirit that even Charlie Daniels himself would be proud. Of course the concert is very rock orientated, either due to the fact that the new Cd (collaboration with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden) is very rock or that commonly enough, American artists who play in London tend to play less country music than usual. This aside, the show was great. Zac has an incredible voice and the group are real “kickass” musicians. At approximately 21.45, after several encores “Beautiful Drug” and “Chicken Fried”, the concert sadly comes to an end amongst the ovation of the 12,000 crowd of the Wembley Arena. A perfect evening: great location, great audience, great music and of course … great Zac Brown. (Luisa Sala, Roberto Goldoni)