COLLECTING-CANS dogged one's route to last night's show, seeking

donations for three separate worthy causes. Anti-racism. Childline.

Rumania.

I gave; I gave; I gave up and did a body-swerve. Are Chris Rea fans

reckoned to be a more charitable bunch? Probably.

After all, increasing numbers of them have been happily accepting

Chris's minimalist blues twang-thang during his slow rise to low-key

superstardom over the past seven years.

What does he give them? What do they want? Toe-tapping reassurance? A

musicianly skate over the surface? I give in.

And add up what they got last night that they wouldn't have got from

staying at home listening to the records.

Not a lot, a proper Rea-list. Nice coloured lights above their heads

and sometimes in their eyes. Occasional swirls of backlit dry ice which

served to silhouette Chris's not insubstantial form. A band, one member

of which wore a panama hat. Rain, thunder, sea, and seagull noises.

Momentary blasts of fireworks (not metaphysical, though, and never

lasting long enough to be illuminating). Chris sitting down for a bit,

playing chunky slide guitar. Chris standing up playing chunky blues

guitar. Chris waving, briefly. Chris clapping both his hands at chin

height, less briefly.

And Chris's voice? Huskily world-weary; the growl of a planed-down Tom

Waits. Neither angry nor joyous, merely resigned. Lacking the energy to

be wistful.

Philosophy? ''Keep your head down . . . don't you ever think no-one's

better than you.''

Whoah, mama. I got them Ploddy, Polite, Prosaic, Non-Transformatory

Blues again, sho' nuff. To paraphrase Chris's own Road To Hell, ''this

ain't no upwardly-mobile freeway . . . this is a flipping cul-de-sac.''

Grieve generously for the self-limiting future of rock'n'roll.