The One Tree Music Festival: Part 2
Last evening was wonderfully spent at the OneTree Music Festival. The performance for the evening was Walter Trout and the Radicals. As usual, Nandita and I reached the venue about 10 minutes ahead of show time. We met with Arun and Nappinai there and for the first time got promoted to the mosh pit area.
I do not claim to know Mr. Trout’s abilities as I was hearing and watching him for the first time ever but what I did see simply enthralled me. This was an evening of excellent blues and worth every paise paid for the performance. For those who have not heard of Mr. Trout, he is supposedly a legendary blues guitarist who has played deeply with the likes of John Mayall (spent five years in JM’s band), Jeff Healey and Canned Heat among several other notables.
Most of the tunes played last night were from their new CD, Full Circle and yes, I liked, I liked!! Special guests included Bernard Allison, (son of legendary bluesman Luther Allison) and Guitar Shorty. I quite liked the bassist too, Rick Knapp, a very morose and imposing figure on stage who rarely smiled, he just went about his business, no-fuss-no-muss and Sammy Avila on keyboards, quite reminiscent of Jon Lord at times, the way he kept running his fingers over the keys. Sound was fantastic and the performance was excellently tempered right from the rusty blues vocals through the offtake and the blues-rock jams on the guitars. And I could not but help notice the classic Mayall effect in some of the opening bars.
One little, no make that big, quibble – Guitar Shorty was simply astounding with his onscreen antics (somersaults, et al) and fret work, I mean he was like “WOW” but I did not hold with two things that he did onstage – wiping his arse with his guitar and making some crude noises and trying to play it with his boots – to me, both mannerisms smacked of complete disrespect to the guitar, and on a broader scale to music itself. Whilst this may have garnered several cheap whistles and catcalls from the crowd, I personally found it demeaning and depressing. Lopping two points off the concert performance.
All told, a searingly explosive performance that left me numb at its end. The show ended at 10 pm thereabouts and we trudged home tired but happy. I intend to sample listen to Full Circle shortly and buy it if I like it.
I would give this a 7 out of 10.
Cheers
S