Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 11:53 pm Post subject: F#%$ING AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Oh, what a night! First, I had to negotiate bumper to bumper traffic through San Jose; then contend with SUVs and their aphasic drivers who never seem to learn how to turn off their high beams or hang up their phones (and they pick their noses while doing all that.) THEN, I GET LOST! (Yes, Blob, you heard me...I got lost!!! What can I say? It's part of my charm! And you thought I was just terminally cute, huh?)
But thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, I finally got to Santa Cruz, found Moe's (if you blinked, you would miss it...I did four times!) and discovered that my penchance for audacity is growing exponentially as I get older. (I have never liked that I am a small person or that I am often mistaken for one of my seventh graders...) But I must admit, every now and then, it comes in verrrrrrry handy, because I slithered through the crowd, right up to the edge of the stage, because I can get away with doing things like that! The first few people I zig-zagged through saw a sheepish look on my face; but then I jetted overtly, (with the help of quite a few pairs of hands...thanks, fellas...) and took my favorite spot, smack dab in the front, just to the right of center.
Damn, I missed the first part of the show (first time THAT has ever happened) but there is always tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday, so what the hell?) But Robben was on fire (as always) and I think he knew it. The crowd was all (ahem) fifty-somethings and well versed in Ford fan-aticism. I had to laugh when they began to cheer at the first few bars of "Badge," because many of you whine about not liking the cut or the album. I'm sorry, it was just plain fantastic. I am beginning to appreciate how easy it is to please me...what a GREAT Wednesday night!
Hilary is amazing (and not just because she shares the same name with my daughter, AND they both spell it the same way!) She is a power-house with a contagious smile, and she plays her butt off! (Well, to be more accurate, she plays her shoulders off, but you get my drift.) Wonderful to watch, and I do not often watch drummers.
The encore number was a searing "Homework" (I cannot help but believe that it is for the teachers in the crowd!) and during one song, Bob Mallach launched into a steamy "Wade In The Water" riff that made the three hairs on my arm all stand at attention. He is one damn fine musician. They all are!
Dewayne also took a monster solo, and I didn't see him mouth, "There's that WOMAN," when he saw me, but I was late, so perhaps he will do that tomorrow night. I hesitate to ruin my reputation, albeit unearned, because I never notice what clothes Robben is wearing, but I did see that he was wearing a white shirt, and black boots. I notice colors, hands, and shoes, okay? I'm just a kinesthetic woman, got my mind made up 'bout you...say yea yea yeah, say yea yea yeah, say yea yea yeah.
I'm sure Aeolian will fill you in on the tech stuff...Robben played the black Baker and the favorite Tele (wonder what ever happened to the red Baker? It was such a pretty little thing, but the black one is exquisite and exudes full, mellifluous tones..personally, the Tele is my favorite. It reminds me of those well loved teddy bears, whose faces have been blurred by adoration and affection) and he did some tasty little turns with his pedals, but I just LOVE that stuff!
Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to work I go tomorrow, so it's sleepy-time-time now. Next stop: Yoshi's! (AND MY DAUGHTER IS GOING WITH ME TOMORROW NIGHT...I CAN'T WAIT! I have waited all my parental life for this!)
Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Posts: 39 Location: manchester, england
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 1:16 am Post subject: recording
thanks elizabeth for a great review, its good people like you take the time to talk about and share robbens performances. It still AMAZES me how Robben Ford is not a household name, how can this be? There is just NOONE who can play like him!!!! He is the best guitar player in the world!!!! Ever!!!!!
Anyway what i was going to ask is is robben recording any of these shows at Yoshis for a live album? Surely this would be a perfect opportunity! Could you let us know elizabeth if robben announces that they are recording?
Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 27 Location: Trieste, Italy
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 1:35 am Post subject: Thanks!
Thanks Elizabeth for your review!
It's so great, not only to hear the concert details, but
your amusing personal experiences. (I'm glad I'm not
the only one who gets lost looking for a venue!).
Now if only someone would take some pictures.... WITH the drummer please!!!
I haven't seen Hilary since.... 1999!!
As always, thanks for the great write up and info. You have quite a week in store for you. You have a wonderful gift of language and I always enjoy reading your posts even though I sometimes need to refer to my dictionary. I dearly love the Finger Lakes region of NY where I live, but with the temperature at 10 below and all of those shows you guys are seeing this week the SF bay area looks pretty damn good.
I hope your daughter enjoys the show as much as my son (15) did this past summer in Syracuse. The look of pure awe on his face during Robben's set is something I will never forget. I hope you enjoy this week to it's fullest. You might need a nice, long nap when it's over.
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 6:10 am Post subject: Re: F#%$ING AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
elizabeth wrote:
THEN, I GET LOST! (Yes, Blob, you heard me...I got lost!!! , I finally got to Santa Cruz, found Moe's (if you blinked, you would miss it...I did four times, elizabeth
Oh , i barely can believe it. You've been there for Garth!!!
The story of life is shorter than the blink of an eye (J.Hendrix)
Blob.
P.S Thanks for the review and happy Robbenish Week.
Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 6:43 am Post subject: Quelle difference..
No Blobby, Garth was at JJ's (San Jose - really easy to find;) Robben was at Moe's Alley (Santa Cruz...circuitous highway road, ending in dark, funky little beach town...) And hey, no complaints...I found Yukiah and Sonora with pas de problem, eh?
Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 9:33 am Post subject:
Jon - Sorry, there are no plans to record at the Yoshi's gigs, or of ANY live recordings in NEAR future. For those attending the Yoshi's gigs, there will be ocassional guests dropping by... Mark Ford, John R. Burr, and hopefully others.
Suzi - I know I've said this before but I really am trying to get the time and material together to get my RF Pass site updated. There is just so much material to go thru, process, and prepare, with such little time available to do it in. Soon though... soon I will be bringing all up to date on current Robben and Jing Chi news, with photos, including pix of Hilary in action. We are very glad to have her back. As one person yelled out of the audience last night "Robben, your drummer rocks"! Robben, Duane and Bob totally agree. _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 11:11 am Post subject: Re: Quelle difference..
elizabeth wrote:
No Blobby, Garth was at JJ's (San Jose - really easy to find;) Robben was at Moe's Alley (Santa Cruz...circuitous highway road, ending in dark, funky little beach town...) And hey, no complaints...I found Yukiah and Sonora with pas de problem, eh?
Maybe it's because JJ's was nearby a Nordstroms and Moes required a funny freeway exit loop back around. It certainly didn't keep her from finding the stage when she got there. (I felt a breeze go by and there was Liz, right up front, two feet in front of Dewayne).
More to follow on the show, unfortuanately, turning the flash off on my camera resulted in dark, blury pictures again. (I need to get out the losers manual). Maybe better luck in Yoshi's _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 1:43 pm Post subject:
Liz - Glad you made it to the show. I thought of you during the show, and wondered if you were there. I do hope I was not rude or dismissive of you at any point. Last night was one of those hectic, strange evenings for me where I was so distracted with production issues that I really didn't focus much past my own nose.
Don't get me wrong. the shows went very well over all and the band was very pleased with the venue, the audience, and their own performances. They all had a lot of fun. I had been to Moe's before (2 or 3 times with blues guitarist Debbie Davies) so I was quite familiar & comfortable there, but working out of the little dressing room off the side of the stage, trying to get my stuff done while surrounded by musicians, and handling the production of 2 shows back to back while dealing with and trying to minimize that strange RF feedback that Robben's rig was picking up just had my focus very tunnel-visioned!
Once we get settled into Yoshi's tonight though, life will be much more relaxed for the next few days (I may even have time to get that RF Pass update completed that I keep promising you all!) and I should be a little more cordial and attentive to all the fans, both regular and new, I expect will be around. Smiles for everyone, free and for the taking!
As a historical sidenote of interest, when Alexander Dumble learned we were playing at Moe's he told me that he himself used to play there all the time, waaaaayyyy back at the dawn of man, with his own band, Life Boy Radio. In those days, he says, Moe's Alley was called The Grass Cookie and it was during that time and there in that venue that he developed and built his very first Overdrive Specials (the amp that robben uses), so he considers that venue to be their official birthplace. _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 3:53 pm Post subject:
Elizabeth, I am surprised you didn’t mention the velvet pants in your fashion report.
As for the techie stuff, Black Baker, Tele, normal Dumble rig. He was using the larger TC pedalboard, and as I’ve seen in the past, sometimes he doesn’t get what he expects and will keep stabbing at patches and turning around to look at the rack to see what it is doing. As Kirk mentioned in his review of the Colorado shows, Robben is using a lot of delay these days. Everything was at least as wet as Cannonball Shuffle and some more so. Instead of the chrome 535Q Crybaby I’ve usually seen, he had a black one and I didn’t see the knob sticking out the side. This may be one of the prototypes Daved mentioned. Another change is that Robben seems to be using much less gain than before. That saturated sound wasn’t there, even though he turned on the boost and turned off the coil splitter on the Baker a couple of times. For those who have been following his settings (I haven’t since I don’t have this exact head and probably couldn’t hit the guitar the same way no matter how hard I tried, but I took a picture this time for those who are interested) he was using the FET input, the input gain was just below 5, and the OD level and output were both about 4.
On to the show! The dance floor was packed with bodies like a New York subway platform. A Local DJ came out to announce some upcoming shows and then the band kicked it off with Up the Line. There was some weird hum happening that was bugging Robben. (Daved spent most of the break waving the Tele around the stage trying to figure out what it was) Somewhere along the third or fourth song, Robben introduced the band and then said that the next tune was the title track from the current album. Having done a cool MC job, Robben gestured for Hilary to kick off the song. She quickly counted out half a measure and started off a pick up fill to “Over My Head”, the sudden stares from Robben and Dewayne stopped her before she got to the downbeat. I’m not sure what was said but she poked her drumstick at a set list taped to the side of Dewayne’s amp. Everyone broke into smiles and the tension over the hum was lifted. It was one of those “to hell with it” moments where everyone just went with the flow, relaxed and started enjoying themselves. Most of the songs were from Keep on Running or Blue Moon. But they did a totally altered version of “Help The Poor”. I’m still trying to visualize what those weird substitutions were that Robben was doing. For those out there who are thinking of skipping this tour since it’s promoting a “blues” album and won’t be “jazzy” enough. Relax, Robben is Robben. He might keep most of a traditional sounding blues song in character but “those notes” slip out of him nonetheless. And every couple of songs he gets a bee in his bonnet and all the wild altered stuff falls out. Still perfectly in phrase, and in context with the song, as only Robben can do. I also think the Coltrane inspired playing of Bob Malach helps keep Robben in touch with this side of himself. At one point he got the band to stop completely, letting Bob play completely free. Another Kodak (Memorex?) moment. In “Help The Poor” Dewayne took a really tasty solo, devoid of “bicky booms”, but starting out with chimes reminiscent of “Portrait of Tracy”, and then going off into really interesting harmonic territory. Hilary took a short but powerful solo. She seemed to be battling a bug, coughing between songs and looking kind of wiped, but she really dug in and gave several hundred percent. To hear 18” crash cymbals splash, you know she was really whacking those things like she was in an arena rock band. Her muscular Baltimore funk (as opposed to Tos Panos’s more loose limbed style) really set “Badge” in motion bringing instant cheers from the crowd. And as Cannonball Shuffle got rolling, there was Hilary’s freight train driving it right downtown. This is a seriously powerful drummer.
I hope the technical glitches don’t keep Robben away. He has a real following in Santa Cruz. When I turned around after the first show, all I could see were heads, all the way to the back of the club. The energy of the crowd was awesome, exploding in cheers and applause after each solo and at the end of each song. The line waiting for the late show was wrapped around the club. I saw JingChiFan waiting in line and maybe he can chime in with his experience of the late show. It was great to hear Robben in such an intimate setting, standing right in front of us, and hear the actual band off the stage instead of the PA (of which Moe’s has an excellent EAW system and you could hear the vocals really well. I thought a couple of times that Francis could have turned Bob up a little and given him a little more headroom, but at Moe’s you can’t really hear the mains on stage and Robben had motioned for less sax in the monitors)
All and all, a great kick off to the Bay Area tour. Tonight, the first Yoshi’s stand. Hopefully folks (especially Hilary) aren’t too tired from schlepping gear from one corner of the Bay Area to the other. This is a great band, and most of all, Robben is Robben. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 646 Location: City of Trees, USA
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:29 pm Post subject:
Thanks so much to Elizabeth, Aeolian and Daved for such great word-pictures of the Moe's gig. I'm just sorry that I'm not able to jump in the car and go to all of the NorCal shows. And Elizabeth: having attended UC Santa Cruz and having spent the past 30 years or more going back up there four or five times a year for alumni and school events, I know what you mean about the drive and the mysteries about finding your way around. ('Tho in my student days we didn't have the concrete barrier down the center of Highway 17, and getting back and forth over the mountain between Santa Cruz and San Jose was all too often a case of "fatal attraction.") And about "Badge": I never liked the song all that much. Liked it a lot better after I first heard Robben's version on "Keep on Running." Have LOVED it since hearing Robben's encore of it at the gig last week at SOhO in Santa Barbara. _________________ - BlueRunner
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but I really am trying to get the time and material together to get my RF Pass site updated. There is just so much material to go thru, process, and prepare, with such little time available to do it in. Soon though... soon I will be bringing all up to date on current Robben and Jing Chi news, with photos, including pix of Hilary in action. We are very glad to have her back. As one person yelled out of the audience last night "Robben, your drummer rocks"! Robben, Duane and Bob totally agree.
Thanks so much to Elizabeth, Aeolian and Daved for such great word-pictures of the Moe's gig. I'm just sorry that I'm not able to jump in the car and go to all of the NorCal shows. And Elizabeth: having attended UC Santa Cruz and having spent the past 30 years or more going back up there four or five times a year for alumni and school events, I know what you mean about the drive and the mysteries about finding your way around. ('Tho in my student days we didn't have the concrete barrier down the center of Highway 17, and getting back and forth over the mountain between Santa Cruz and San Jose was all too often a case of "fatal attraction.") And about "Badge": I never liked the song all that much. Liked it a lot better after I first heard Robben's version on "Keep on Running." Have LOVED it since hearing Robben's encore of it at the gig last week at SOhO in Santa Barbara.
Seattle is not that far.