If Jeff Beck performing at the Sage Gateshead wasn't enough to wow North East rock fans, the appearance of Hollywood superstar Johnny Depp on stage alongside the guitar legend was enough to propel interest in the show into the stratosphere.
Photographs of the pair enjoying a night out in Newcastle with local hero Sam Fender were posted on social media on Wednesday evening, just around the time Depp learned that he'd won his high-profile defamation case against former wife Amber Heard back home in the United States.
The 58-year-old actor, a close friend of Beck, has appeared alongside the guitarist in each show on the current UK tour, which kicked off last week in Sheffield, sparking huge media interest from around the world. A reporter from People magazine in New York even travelled to Tyneside to check out what was going on.
But lest we forget, this was Beck's show. The guitarists' guitarist. A player who sometimes sounds likes Hank Marvin on acid. And a bona fide rock legend. Now a defiantly youthful 77, he was one of that incredible roster of young guitar talents from the London/South East area who roared on to the scene in the mid 1960s.
Three of them were even in the same band - The Yardbirds - at one time or another. But if Jimmy Page is putting his feet up these days, and Eric Clapton is playing it safe, Beck continues to push the boundaries of guitar - an effortless master of rock, blues and jazz fusion styles.
The show kicked off at a solidly sold-out Sage with Star Cycle , the synthesiser-rock hybrid from 1980's There And Back album. Music buffs might remember it as the theme tune from television's The Tube . Wielding his trademark white Fender Strat, the guitarist next up unleashed his sonic magic on You Know You Know, a Mahavishnu Orchestra fusion classic from the early '70s.
As a band leader, Beck has always surrounded himself with some of the best musicians in the business, and it's no different on this tour. Rhonda Smith on bass has played with Prince and Beyonce, while German prodigy Anika Nilles occupies the drum seat occupied by such previous luminaries as Vinnie Colaiuta, Terry Bozzio, Simon Phillips and Narada Michael Walden. Cellist Vanessa Freebairn-Smith and Robert Adam Stevenson on Keyboards complete a highly proficient backing band.
It was Nilles' turn to shine on another fusion bruiser, Stratus , originally recorded by drum maestro Billy Cobham, while Beck displayed his virtuosity on the ethereal Far Eastern-flavoured Nadia , followed up by the three-chord crunch of Rumble by Link Wray.
The self-penned 12/8 stomper Big Block followed by the laid-back sophistication of Brush With The Blues were next - and then it was time for Johnny Depp. "What a result" announced Beck (and we all knew what he was referring to) as one of the biggest film stars on the planet walked on to the Gateshead stage to wild applause and some screams.
Beck who has referred to the film actor as a 'soulmate' told the audience: "We met five years ago and we've never stopped laughing. We've got an album coming out in July." Depp, an accomplished musician in his own right, settled naturally into full rock star mode, providing effective vocals and guitar for Heddy Lamar , which the pair wrote together, and a handful of covers including John Lennon's Isolation , Marvin Gaye's What's Going On , Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing , and Killing Joke's The Death and Resurrection Show .
Depp temporarily exited stage right, while the guitarist took the instrument to the very limits of its capabilities with Cause We've Ended As Lovers and Corpus Christi Carol , before returning for a storming encore interpretation of The Beatles' A Day In The Life .
Whether Beck purists approve of this seemingly unlikely collaboration or not, the band certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves and there's clearly a lot more mileage in this project moving forward.
Photographs courtesy of Adam Kennedy. Check out his work here
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