John Hiatt says goodbye (maybe)

Last night’s gig at the O2’s Indigo was prominently billed, John Hiatt pointed out, as being part of his Farewell Tour. “If I come back next year,” he said, “what are we going to call it?” Or words to that effect. I’m inclined to think that whoever thought up the title might have been correct. At 73, quite frankly, Hiatt doesn’t have much of a voice left. The straining to hit the higher notes wasn’t helped, early in the set, when his tuning gizmo misled him into tweaking his whole guitar a semitone high. It wasn’t until a dozen of the 20 songs had gone by that his use of a harmonica revealed the error. Somebody came up with a replacement gizmo, the tuning was corrected, and the last run of songs sounded more comfortable. So perhaps he will be back, encouraged by the warmth of the response from those who had made the journey to the ghastly O2’s more intimate performance space and who feel an enormous fondness towards a man who may never have achieved the solo stardom many forecast as…