There are regular musicians, and then there are those who appear as if from another realm, their skills far beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Dutch guitarist Jan Akkerman definitely falls in the last category and developed a unique style that incorporated everything from classical to jazz, fused them into a cohesive whole and then went on to change the face of popular music. Capturing the man live, My Focus: Live Under The Rainbow is a document of an artist at the peak of his powers.

Making a good live album is no easy science; the track list shouldn’t resemble their studio versions too closely (we have the original records for that), nor should they be radical reworking and veer too far from their studio counterparts. The secret is to hit that sweet spot somewhere in the middle, and that’s exactly what Jan has done on this record. Take opening track ‘Spiritual Privacy (Sunset Tango)’, for example, it carries the same kind of groove as that which appeared on 2019’s Close Beauty, yet he’s put it in a new frame that puts the funk element is sharp relief. It also highlights the jazzy/proggy swing that was buried on the original and now gets brought to the fore and finds the band adding an additional two minutes to the song’s running time. It’s a perfect way to introduce a set and finds Jan (and band) slowly blossoming and building momentum, warming up like a valve on a Marshall amplifier, meaning that when the following ‘Answers Questions – Questions Answers’ arrives, Jan’s fingers are full of dexterity and he unleashes some fine spidery, spasmodic solos.

For some reason, Jan Akkerman is often overlooked when it comes to those “best guitarist” lists, and on the strength of this recording that’s a rather strange anomaly. Like the best six stringers, Jan understands that sometimes it’s not what you play, but what you don’t. A good musician will always leave plenty of space for the listener to infer their own meaning (as Jan does on ‘Focus 2’), it’s not about a guitarist selfishly scrawling their signature sound on every surface, rather leaving a little room for the crowd to add theirs. It is this which makes My Focus: Live Under The Rainbow a collaborative affair and has no difficulty in holding the listener’s attention over its eleven tracks and seventy minutes.

With songs from his solo career and Focus days, this album is a retrospective overview, only with the added oomph of being played live. Two Focus tracks close the album (‘Hocus Pocus’ and ‘Sylvia’) and evidence just what a truly gifted musician Jan Akkerman really is, of course, that’s something we’ve always known, but this live album should tell the world.

• My Focus: Live Under The Rainbow is released via Artone/Music Theories Recordings on 12th December 2025 (available here).
• Official Website

Track List:

1. Spiritual Privacy
2. Answers Questions – Questions Answers
3. Focus 2
4. Focus 1
5. Palace of the King
6. Anonymous
7. Big Sur.
8. Tommy’s Anniversary
9. Piétons
10. Hocus Pocus
11. Sylvia