119

okay, okay, before I start here and keep getting the same question all over again and again, I want to have mentioned, that this man here used to be the guitarist within Supertramp. And whoever still doesn't know, who this band is, shouldn't carry on reading this. 
However, Carl Verheyen once came in for Roger Hudgsen in 1985 and got himself a name. Unfortunately the american belongs to those artists, who despite their huge talents, haven't made it yet to the peak of the Olymp in the musicscene. He has released several soloalbums yet and contributed to many movie soundtracks,- for instance for 'The Crow' - part one and two, or 'From Dusk 'Till Dawn', just to mention two. But movie companies often drop the names of musicians beeing involved in the film music, so their names don't appear in the credits of the CD covers. 
Short and painless, Carl is one of those artists who have to define themselves always again and again. And right now, he takes another shoot off with his new solorecord 'Take One Step' and a five weeks european tour. He comes out of the Bluesrock corner, but in 2002 he already went for a wider range in styles, which included quite a few jazzy elements. He takes his time to compose and record music. And the latest release took over 12 months to make. But like we say so in our language over here, 'hurry with patience, so it's even more perfect in the end.'

Yep, and it certainly does very much indeed so. On the other hand everything sounds so easy, just like thrown into the air. Beeing pretty much jetlaged from the flight over here to Europe, the Carl Verheyen Band starts off  tonight  in Habach Village (abot 30 minutes drive from munich) Unfortunately due to probably to less promotion and a lack of generell musical knowledge, there are only aprox. 70 people here to convince themselves about Carl's brilliant playing. And they certainly get what they want. The band plays in two sets with a short break inbetween. While the first part is concentrating more on the new crossover stuff and the new album of course, the second one contains almost purely the good old bluesrock sound and goes down much better with the fans including an excellent version of the Beatles classic tune  ‚I’m The Taxman’. –
                                                                         

Personally it hurts me a bit, that such great musicians like Carl Verheyen haven't got the big attention they deserve. And I wish him with all of my heart, that this will change one day and he'll once again will rise up above the session musician level.
Oh and just to mention it in the end... Should Supertramp ever will tour again, thanks to the success of last year's Best of... album, then Carl might be with them again . In the meantime have a great time in Europe,and  hopefully some more people, as tonight, will check you out. It's definately worth it. 

                                                        For Aftershow snapshots go 
here