Greg Spero Gig review.

Chicago meets Lanercost.

On the 5^th April 2012, walking into Dacre Hall at Lanercost I didn’t know what to expect of the musician Greg Spero, having never heard his music before. However if the atmosphere of the audience was anything to go off, then I was feeling positive anticipation. We arrived at Dacre Hall at 7:10pm so we had 20 minutes to wait until the show began. Dacre Hall itself is an old stone building with a spectacular wood panelled fire place and quite a small venue.  

Soon enough the main lights were all turned off, and in the centre of the room where the band was set up, a spotlight shone. Greg Spero, a young man from Chicago, who is exceptionally talented on the piano, was putting on a performance and he was backed by Andy Champion on the bass and Adrian Tilbrook on the drums. They started off by performing the song ‘Hills’, a catchy song that sounds even more beautiful live than it does on Spero’s album ‘Acoustic’. After playing the first song, he spoke to us about his adventures so far in England, and his excitement about playing for us at a sold out show. The next 2 songs he played for us were ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘When I fall in love’, which are just a couple of examples of the musical talent that Spero possesses. He then proceeded to play the song ‘Universe’. The song ‘Universe’ is a beautiful piece of music that you find yourself getting lost in whilst listening to it, but not only do you get lost in its beauty but Greg seemed to completely immerse himself into the performance.  The first set ended with a cover of Miles Davis’ ‘Blue in Green’ which completely compliments the original, and even that is an understatement. Local Saxophonist Roz Sluman joined in with some of the performances. Simply saying that she’s brilliant doesn’t do her justice, the crowd loved seeing her perform and she honestly was amazing.

 The second half of the night’s performance was set into motion with a cover of The Beatles song ‘Blackbird’ which added a new twist to a classic song; whilst still complimenting it with Spero’s musical grace. The second song to be played was a cover of ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ performed by Judy Garland and Harold Arlen, which like the original was very beautiful. After this came the song ‘Footprints’, which is a lovely little number that sounds absolutely great. Then he performed ‘Latin Fusion Blues’ which can also be found on album ‘Acoustic’, it’s a more upbeat song but it’s catchy and performed brilliantly. A rendition of ‘Sly’ by Herbie Hancock followed ‘Latin Fusion  Blues’ and it was just as wonderful as the original, along with all the other songs this shows off his obvious talent. The final song Spero performed for us was ‘Stella by Starlight’, this song was the perfect song to close with, it’s upbeat and you remember it once it’s finished.

He obviously puts his heart and soul into the performances, as they sound absolutely wonderful. Greg comes across as a very charismatic man who interacts well with the audience. He asked the audience what they wanted to hear and the fulfilled their requests. This in my eyes makes him a good performer. Obviously Spero isn’t the only person to thank for an evening of wonderful music, there’s also Andy Champion, Roz Sluman and Adrian Tilbrook who all performed splendidly. The evening was absolutely fantastic, and I completely recommend listening to Greg Spero as his music is truly beautiful and he needs to be heard.

Spero's acoustic album universe.