Last?Saturday? two of the world's best electric guitar players filled Hogg
Auditorium with around a thousand people to enjoy what you would think
would be a great show. Adrian Belew had technical problems that will
sometimes happen to guitar players with fancy rigs. Despite this
daunting him in every song Adrian, almost at wits end, still pulled some
rabbits out of his magic hat.
He swore to return and provide what he is
capable of and I suggest everyone believe him and attend his next show.
I have watched Mr. Belew since his David Bowie days and then through
King Crimson and I consider him to be unequalled in sheer originality.
Now to Eric...I have watched " the evil master of all lead and rhythm "?
since he first appeared with the ELECTROMAGNETS in in the early 70's.
God help you if you are a guitar player and you think you're pretty good
and then someone takes you to an Eric Johnson show and its a good venue
and he has an ON night. HOWEVER at last night's show this was not the
case! What came to mind as I sat through what I could stand of this
fiasco is THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES. So I'm curious...is Eric really
surrounded by YES men who were afraid to tell him that the acoustics in
Hogg are like a BUS STATION BATH ROOM at best. The natural reverb of the
room and the echo produced by the sad sound company made the music close
to unlistenable. Eric's usual fantastic tones and structured? channel
switching all melted together in a giant blob and then was pumped
through P.A. columns that sounded like they had giant socks over them.
If the sound had been any more muffled it would been like a performance
art piece where the audience was supposed to experience what it's like
to be hearing impaired. So whoever produced this show and who ever the
sound company is are now to be considered ...oh let's see...snake oil
salesman--who absconded with a purse from a packed house at thirty bucks
a head.? Since Eric and Adrian have to depend on the people who work for
them to know at the sound check if things are okay we can only hope they
will not let these concert promoters or this sound company ever take
another dump on the talent of these two legends ever again.
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