Burning Rain’s Aldrich and St John put on a great acoustic show in Chesterfield to launch UK tour

Burning Rain at Real Time Live, Chesterfield. Photo by Kev White.

Support for the evening was from Ben Miles, a one-man powerhouse, whose set comprised some great Blues covers with strong original songs thrown in.

The headliners were two members of US rock band; Burning Rain. Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake/Dio/Dead Daisies) and Keith St John (Lynch Mob/Montrose/Quiet Riot) are both legendary musicians in their own right.

Burning Rain formed in 1998 and recorded four albums in between commitments with various other projects. Aldrich and St John are playing a string of unplugged shows in the UK before the whole band play some European gigs.

Aldrich and St John took to the stage and launched into a warm up song, a cover of the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash. The first couple of songs were a little ropy and both musicians were quite nervous, by their own admission that due to other commitments they had not rehearsed as much as they would have liked, plus this was the opening night of the tour.

It wasn’t long before both Aldrich and St John got into their stride and shared jokes with the crowd, it was great to see them visibly relax and enjoy the performance. Aldrich and St John are good singers and great guitar players.

The songs that really stood out for me were Cherie Don’t Break My Heart, Smooth Locomotion, Purple Haze, All Along The Watchtower, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, My Lust Your Fate, If It’s Love, Black Dog, Face The Music, Montrose’s Rock Candy, Heaven Gets Me By and Whitesnake’s Til The End Of Time.

As a music fan I love these unplugged gigs, the musicians are very much exposed. With only acoustic guitars, it shows how good the artists really are and how strong their material is when played in its most basic form. The choice of covers worked really well in the set. I would highly recommend a Burning Rain acoustic show and would be interested in seeing the full band at some point.

A great show by two of the most respected rock musicians of the last 20 or so years. It was a real privilege to watch this unplugged performance.