Album review: JAN AKKERMAN – My Focus Live Under The Rainbow

Music Theories Recordings [Release date: 12.12.25]

Possibly missed by some, Jan Akkerman played a short series of dates in the UK in February 2025. Fortunately this rare excursion has been captured on a new live album.

It seems that Akkerman is maybe more fully reconciled to playing Focus back catalogue as he was, say, 30 years ago. As a consequence, this set is fully spiced with key cuts from that period for which he is best known in Blighty. Even if, like ‘Anonymous’, it’s a little condensed.

The opener ‘Spiritual Privacy’ (from ‘Close Beauty’) is a good scene setter, a funky jam that displays all the hallmarks of this master guitarist and always underpinned with a great sense of rhythm. Ditto ‘Big Sur’ which like ‘Pietons’ contains many of the familiar motifs but does allow his fellow band members to stretch out.

For the faithful there will always be the feeling that what is essentially the 1973 Rainbow setlist sounds over familiar and indeed this was one of the reasons the guitarist eventually quit.

Only ‘House Of The King’ gets a substantial re-imagining – now with a Latin/jazz flavour – whilst the classic ‘Tommy’ is the submerged jazzy version that appeared on ‘Close Beauty’.

There was a time when the guitarist was apt to play mere snatches of the glory days or buried in an otherwise meandering jam so an accurate rendering will always go down well. Deep cuts? Maybe another time.

Yes, we’ve heard most of these tunes many times before but, frankly, it is comforting to know that Akkerman is still hammering them out – and to generally great effect. ***1/2

Review by David Randall

Close Beauty (2019)
An Introduction to Focus

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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