Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:10 am Post subject:
Hey, I'll be there Thurs at 8:00 too. Mike Landau playing along with Robben, I couldn't miss it. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 25 Sep 2007 Posts: 21 Location: El Cerrito
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:56 am Post subject: Yoshis
I literally just joined but have been listening to Robben since he was with Tom Scott. Looking forward to going to the Wed 8 and Friday 8 show!
I don't know if anyone knows the answer to this, but before tickets even went on sale both Saturday shows were already sold out. Any info? Just curious
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:12 pm Post subject: yoshis
Maybe it sold out because of the San Francisco Blues Festival.
Robben has a lot of fans and that could end up being the
afterfest boogie for the gang. Don't know but that's the best
reason I can come up with. I'm going to both show Thurs,
Maybe tomorrow too, gotta check the bank account first.
-pf
Just got home from the show (Thurs). I haven't seen a RF concert for a while...Since Tiger Walk, so it was time. As always, a real treat. The new material was interesting...? I suppose the more you hear the more it, the more it grows on you. It was certainly fun watching him play that marroon guitar the whole time. I thought the other guitarist...Mike Landau was fabulous as well..great tone from that Strat! It definitely added a different aspect to the show & the new tunes. It's great to see these great Artists like RF, letting the other guitar player cut loose....the whole band was great!
Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:30 pm Post subject: Yoshi's
Oh jeez, Kirk, I kept looking at you across the room, thinking it looked like you...then I decided I was nuts. I'm so mad at myself for not walking over to take a closer look. I figured I was being rude enough just staring at you for as long as I did. It was the first time I didn't sit in the front row against the stage...there were no seats, so I had to sit up in the next level where the sound is great, but not close enough for me.
Anyway, I will be there tomorrow night at 10, and Sunday night. Wednesday was killer. Landau just served as a catalyst to drive Robben to play incredibly.And Landau's guitar was absolutely on fire! That was just the first show...can't wait for tomorrow night and Sunday.
Oh, and the reason it is sold out for Saturday is that some foundation bought out all the tickets AND THE WHOLE RESTAURANT for some charity benefit thing. Must have cost a fortune!
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:31 am Post subject:
Liz, were you there last night at 8:00? I looked around and for the first time didn't see anyone I recognized. My wife and I got there late (traffic) and it looked like we were going to be stuffed in the corner when the seating guy asks if we mind sitting up front and proceeds to put our slips on a pair of chairs front row center. Wow! Fortune smiles. A bit close to hear the vocals clearly and Robben tends to comp loudly so we couldn't hear Mike standing out as much as he should have been.
But what a show!!! I don't know if Robben bothers with the internet and sees all the comments about his tone getting thinner than the BlueLine days, or that he has toned down his playing to more basic blues and isn't playing all the wild fusion that guitar players fell in love with, but HE'S BACK. Man, he was on fire last night. I've seen him get inspired by a song or two recently and dig into it, but he was non-stop last night. On his game. He has always had this amazing mastery of the fingerboard where he can extend lines or chord movements and keep on going until the guitar has no more room. Well, last night things were falling out of him where he could do no wrong. He'd resolve a line two octaves away and just throw his hand to one or the other end of the guitar, and nail it with that wonderful phrasing of his.
He played the Sakashta all night. There was a faded cherry 335 off to the side but he didn't bother with it the whole set. There were a couple of songs where you could tell he missed the Tele and was trying to get the nopaul to go there, but he just went on and played. He had both amps there. The older amp was in a black head cab and sitting on his second 2-12 (which I've seen pictures of but never seen in person before, it doesn't have a floating baffle like the tweed, more like a current Two Rock cabinet). But he played though the newer amp with the segmented logo instead of the scriptish logo of the older one, and though the tweed cab.(Dave H, didn't he used to use the older amp as his number 1? I seem to remember a post of yours some time ago spelling out the vintage and history of these two amps and that the one with the segmented logo was the newer one and was the one that got put into the combo cab). At one point the lights were on the cab that I could see that the speakers were new, or at least had brand new cones on them. Large dust caps like the C65s. Don't know if they were reconed old ones or some reissue. The settings on the amp were a bit lower than he used to have them at Yoshi's, and he was running noticiably less gain on the OD channel. But instead of using the tone bypass for most solos (as he had been doing lately) he went for the OD channel, often flipping the coil tap off on the Sakashta and a couple of times he did the OD + boost thing. With the gain lowered, it wasn't as saturated as Rugged Road, but it was clearer and more articulate. Without having that thinner bright sound he's been using lately. It had that very thick, almost gurglely fat sound so many of us fell in love with.
The band was on it. Gary Novak must have mainlined some Vinnie as he was really having a ball in the pocket. Andy Hess was a force of nature keeping things down and grooving. But he is no root/five on the one player. If you paid attention, he was playing some wonderful stuff, but it just fit in the song so well, you didn't notice it. I can't think of a higher compliment for a bass player.
Mike Landau. What can you say. A consumate musician and as Robben said, "a special treat". Mike played the sideman role that he is so adept at. Finding the perfect bits to stick in here and there. Using modulation effects to cover organ parts without obviously trying to mimic the organ. Mike kept a lid on it and didn't go off into the demented Hendrix thing that he can do. But he still showed his stuff and played some amazing parts. It was like he was giving his all in that wonderful build up that both he and Robben can do, but stopping about 75% of the way so as not to call too much attention to his side of the stage. But the lower 75% didn't hold back. He played wonderful melodic lines, toyed with outside line in the way he sets up a build, threw in some wild Scott Hendersonish chops lines, and did a couple of things with an amazing clean tone that were just beautiful. And then he would turn it over to Robben and sit back and watch Robben go all out. There were a few times when you caught a glimpse of his appreciation for Robben. I think the breadth of Mikes playing is greater than Robben's, and he has more chops in the conventional sense. But there is a musical way that Robben plays technically complex lines that while they might not stress Mike's chops, you could tell that Mike was impressed by that something special that Robben brings to them.
I can only imagine what these two sound like down in the small LA clubs when it's fun time and not an album support tour. Maybe it was the memory of those Safari Sam's jams that piqued Robben to play the way he did.
I wish I could have stayed for the second, and come back for more nights. But I'm playing all weekend, and we just switched to IEM's so I'm fighting with programming a Tone Lab. After that wonderful inspiration, I wish I could just crank up my Fuchs and play some blues. But it's Brick House time on Cannery Row. Oh well, at least I got to see and hear one set of awesome music. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Aeolian, I was there Weds. night, I will be there tonight, and again on Sunday. But Robben switched guitars (no Tele, a 335 and some others) many times, so you must have been there Thursday. We are like ships, passing in the night. My ship is the H.M.S. Robben, and whoever thought Robben was not playing well these days is nuts! He is as good as he ever was, maybe better. His style is so different than anyone else's that comparison is pointless. It really is pointless between any great player, because you can't compare one person's style with a completely different one. Robben has always has his own unique sound, and I am reminded of how much it comes from him when I hear one of his techs tuning his guitars. Yes, it IS Robben's guitar, but it is obviously not Robben, and even a tone deaf person could recognize that.
Years ago, when everyone was being so silly about the settings on his equipment, I think I said that about 25 times. It is an enigmatic relationship between the musician and their equipment, and it cannot be duplicated. You can try playing Rubenstein's Steinway (I did) but there is no similarity, other than the fact that it is a nice piano. Robben could take one of those cheapo DIY guitar kit jobs, and make that bad boy sing as if it were a $20,000 guitar!
I can't wait for tonight...I figure they are all warmed up, used to the Bay Area atmosphere, and are going to be even better than Wednesday! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Whaddya mean why don't we have teleporters? I use mine alllll the time! _________________ www.elizabethgage.com
Last edited by elizabeth on Fri Sep 28, 2007 4:03 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 3:55 pm Post subject: Teleporters
Oh sorry rainmkr63, I think it must be hereditary. All the people in my family are strange, but we can be in two places at once, so it makes up for some of our weirdness.
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