"I never liked playing in stadiums because it's not much of a musical event. The sound is usually horrible, the audience can't really see you or feel what you're doing or respond to you. I love playing smaller places because of those very reasons."
----Adrian Belew
Friday night's concert here in Edmonton had all three ingredients for a satisfying concert--skilled musicians, a small venue, and an appreciative audience--in spades. First, if you don't know who Adrian Belew is, good. That means that guys like me can get a table right in front of the stage for $30 and see some really wonderful instrumental music. If you have heard his name before, that is because he was discovered by Frank Zappa, then recruited by David Bowie, David Byrne of the Talking Heads and Robert Fripp of King Crimson. Now there is a serious movement afoot to get this guy inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.
But there was another element --that of pleasant surprise. It turns out that the other two thirds of the Power Trio are a brother sister team of Julie and Eric Slick, both still in their early 20s, whom Belew found at the Paul Green School Of Rock. They thrive from having to match the virtuosity of Belw on guitar, as Belew does from having these talented kids to play with. Just looking at the three of them I couldn't help but share the fun they were having. I even got to buy their live CD ("Four") from their mom, Robin Slick, in the lobby.
TO be sure this isn't exactly the more blues-based R&B and jazz that I am most fond of. On the trio's current tour you'll see him play over loops, plug his graphite Parker Fly guitar into keyboards and do all kinds of things to get fresh sounds out of the instrument, but only a couple of tunes--"Ampersand" and "Big Electric Cat" --really stick in my mind as having been all that catchy. He verges on gimmickry and virtuosity for its own sake (which are themselves tired criticisms, I know, that used to be levelled at Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton in the 60s), but he is saved by his own, and his band's, artistry. Belew's punchy and precise playing is abetted by his beautiful space-age Parker guitars, while Julie plays a huge-sounding Lakland bass ("I use a Lakland Bob Glaub into a Keeley C-4 Compressor, with the occasional effect: either a West Siberian distortion pedal (i bought with Tony Levin in Moscow) or a Korg AX3000B. This all goes into an Ampeg SVT (8×10 fridge of a cab)...In my opinion you can’t get a “growlier” chain.")
Situated somewhere between prog rock, experimental post-metal and jazz, what sets this music apart from so much of the new stuff is that it is about the playing. I would go to see them again in a heartbeat.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
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