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he's here, and we waited long enough. I for my part have seen this
musician live on stage in 1990 in London for the last time, whereby this
was just a guest appearance at the joke rockband Bad News show at the
Legendary Marquee Club. The other's here tonight, or better some of them
might have seen Jeff Beck even before. But when he was with the
Yardbirds or with the Jeff Beck Group, I was still a teenager and far
from anywhere to go out and check out rockbands. It's a curious thing, that many of us do know the name Jeff Beck, but don't know most of his music or even his history. This artist has never celebrates such success as Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page did, although he is meant one of the dominating musician in rock music with this visions between Jazz Rock and fusion sound, Psychodelic and Progressive guitar music. For his instrumentals he was awarded 5 times with the Grammy: 1986 for 'Escape, 1990 for Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop with Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas, 2002 for Dirty Mind, 2004 for Plan B and 2010 for A Day In The Life. - Apart from all that, he does certainly belong to the best guitarists around anyway, playing almost entirely with his bare fingers, only using a pic at fast solostints. The reasons for this european tour may probably be the release of his new album 'Emotion & Commotion' and yet another Grammy for the instrumental cover of the Beatles tune 'A Day In The Life'. - There are only a handful dates, Jeff Beck is playing, and one of them is in Munich, right here, and right now.
Beck is accompanied by
Rhonda Smith, Jason
Rebello on Keyboard, and last but not least by one of
the best drummers and songwriter in the world - S Mr. Narada
Michael Walden. And at this point, the qustion evolves:
who is bigger - Beck or Walden. To be honest, I tend to say Walden. But
apart from the innitials on his bass drum, nothing shows,about the
identity of this great musician. So most of us, can concentrate on those
musicians without any influence. Mind me, most of the 4.000 visitors
have come mainly about Jeff Beck of course.
Compared to Beck,
Bonamassa have toured frequently in Europe over the past years and has
tightened his status over here. The clou is, that Joe's biggest hero and
idol is indeed the headliner tonight - Jeff Beck. So he doesn't mind
beeing only the support, no he is in fact very much honoured and starts
his set 10 minutes early. Long talk, short sense,Bonamassa once again
underlines his taltent and shows, that he don't need to hide behind his
idol, exept maybe a little in reputation and the amount of awards.
Another very curious thing is his aura as a musician, presenting himself in a cool Dandy Look, making him look much older, as he actually is. And despite his still young age of 32, he has just put out his 10th studioalbum named 'Black Rock'. That one, went straight to no. 1 in the Billboard Blues Charts and in the normal Top 200 Hitlists it went to 38. This disc is of course the focus within th aprox. 1 hour lasting set. And as always, Joe Bonamassa leaves a brilliant impression, though 90 percent of the audiance is waiting curiously for Jeff Beck. However, I presume, it won't take too long, 'till Joe Bonamassa will be back again, and back in a headliner show....
http://jbonamassa.com/
His slim shape also contains a rather wrinkly face, and his hairstyle, which seems to be the same like 40 years ago, seems in a way, as it's not his own creation. But well, we are not going for visual things here so much. But as you all know, the eye likes to get a taster as well, as we say so. And it doesn't stay hungry, that's for sure, although with a little funny taste. In each case, Beck presents himself very selfconfident. And the sunglasses, he's wearing in the beginning, making him look cool, are past tense very soon.
Good for us photographers,
because nothing says more about a person as his/her eyes. Jeff's setlist
is an instrumental bonfire of individual guitar art. A little singing
comes from bassist Rhonda Smith, which proves again, that women do stand
their man, what's up to aknowledgement.
He is a producer and co author of several no.1 hits like I Wanna Dance With Somebody of Whitney Houston and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now of Starship. For Freeway Of Love, a Hitsingle for Aretha Franklin, he and Jeffrey Cohan received another Grammy award. At the Grammy Awards in 1988 he was awarded for producer of the year. However, Walden's excellent drum solo is the icing on the cake as we say so, and indeed he does steal a little Jeff Beck's show.
Apart from that Jeff is sparkling with tracks like z.B. Corpus Christi.
That one is originally religious lyrics form the 16th century. In the 1930's it was wrapped up in a solid melody and in 1994 it was brought into shape by american singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley with his special falset voice. Jeff Beck has gonne now and put his individual brand onto it. - Well what else have we got here? It's 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' from the unforgetable Judy Garland.
As known the word 'Somewhere' is seperated by 2 octaves, which is no problem to play on guitar, but often sounds rather unspectacular. With Beck playing it, it develops into a lively circulation, going straight for the organ of Judy Garland in it's sensitivity. Giacomo Puccinis "Nessun Dorma", which often has been put into commercial pieces from various artists, does receive a very strange note. And of course we do hear Jeff's Grammy song, the Beatles cover 'A Day In The Life'. Without this, Beck won't go off stage, I guess.
Unfortunately time goes by to quickly and strike 10 p.m. the magic is finished. The audiance wants more, and Beck obviously wanted to play on. I experienced this situation very often in the past with different artists.
But the rules of the town
authorities don't show any mercy and these one's say - not one single
minute beyond 10. |
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