Tomorrow....Buddy Guy with Adrian Belew opening

[Hardrock69]

I think this will be fun.

I will post a review, that is, if it does not get rained out, as it is outside.

Buddy Guy is badder than TEN motherfuckers!!!
:cool:

[Hardrock69]

As there were 3 opening acts, I took my time...got there at 8. Adrian Belew was onstage playing, he played for about another 40 minutes.

As could be expected, he was WAY out in left field. Playing a bunch of stuff that had no groove, was in warped and mysterious time signatures, and was generally way over the heads of a lot of peeps in the audience.

He had a 3-piece band.

He is an amazing guitarist, and his bassist and drummer were fucking great as well.

He had a bunch of fans there, and even though he lives here, he never plays around town. Last time I saw him was about 3 years ago when he toured with King Crimson, and they had John Paul Jones of Led Zep as their opening act.

On to the main event:

As I expected, he kicked more ass than 100 motherfuckers.

Had a 5-piece backup band (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and a sax man).

That man is so full of love and joy when he plays. Absolutely kickass!!!

He broke 2 strings in the first 5 minutes (one on each guitar). The second one, he broke it directly in front of me. I was right up front, and the stage was about level with my chin. The Riverstage is actually a concrete barge permanently anchored right there at the end of Broadway.
So anyway, He was standing directly in front of me playing this furiously intense solo, and he bent the fuck out of that string and it just went SNAP!!!

He went back to his mic, and was singing "I broke a string.....YES I broke a string..."

He was fucking hilarious to watch, as his facial contortions are a true indicator that he is a DIRECT PIPELINE FROM GOD.

He had a Buddy Guy Signature Strat that was Olympic White, with black polka dots (his trademark finish is polka dots) and a brown natural finish 1970s Telecaster Deluxe with humbucking pickups. Both with maple necks.

His Strat is the opposite color from what is available to the public:

http://www.fender.com/products/prod_images/guitars/0138802306_md.jpg

Played through a pair of Fender '59 Bassman LTD Reissue 410 Combos.

http://www.fender.com/products/prod_images/amplifiers/2171000010_md.jpg


He played "Hoochie Coochie Man" by Muddy Waters, as well as snatches of other tunes by Albert King, Junior Wells, a piece of "Strange Brew" by Cream, and of course a bunch of his own shit.

At each end of the stage, there are ramps that lead down to the riverbank itself. He was soloing, and his band was laying down this nice, fat, thick, droolable groove, and he walked to the end of the stage, down the ramp into the crowd, up the riverbank, all the way over to the other end of the stage, back down to the stage, up the ramp and back to his mic, with his 3rd broken string of the evening.

Note: One thing I thought was totally bizarre....and it has to do with the technology of our times..was that as he walked through the crowds playing, he was instantly surrounded by people holding their cell-phones in the air to get pictures of him.

In the old days at concerts, not a lot of people would bring cameras, so this would never happen. But these days, everyone has a fucking cell phone on them at all times.

He got a great reception from the crowd, and he had us singing along on several of the jams he was laying down.

Where the barge is anchored, there is a fence made of metal railing and cement pillars (to keep you from falling in the river...the barge is about a foot from the bank).

Anyways, this one motherfucker got so excited that he climbed up on this 3 foot tall concrete pillar, and was leaning on the front edge of the stage. When he got up there, a security goon told him to get down, and he refused. Two security guys had to drag him down off that pillar and take him away.

Not only is Buddy a fine mufukking guitarist, he is a FIRST CLASS SOULFUL Blues vocalist.

My only complaint, and this is not exactly a bad thing, is that he is extremely dynamic. Meaning a lot of times he is signing or playing guitar (or both) so quietly that the crowd has to shut the fuck up entirely to hear what he is doing.

It makes it kind of difficult to hear at times, but then, being right up front, dead center of the stage, I was not getting any front of house sound either.

By singing and playing so quietly, he FORCES the audience to pay STRICT ATTENTION to everything he does, and he is liable to explode suddenly with some loud asskicking guitar playing or some searing, gut-wrenching vocals.

Sometimes he sounded like an old black lady in church when he was singing.

Needless to say, Buddy Guy is well worth seeing if you have ANY interest in Blues music, or if you want to see one of THE MAJOR influences on the greatest of the British Rock Gods (CLapton, Page, Beck) as well as Jimi Hendrix, who used to literally sit at his feet with a bulky reel-to-reel tape recorder and tape his performances when he was playing in New York. As a matter of fact, I have video of Jimi doing just that, and later on, he gets up onstage and plays bass behind him.

Even if you do not care for blues music per se...if you are any kind of fan of rock music at all, you gotta check him out.

His intensity would burn a hole in the sun.

Thus endeth the review...I give him 500 stars out of a possible 5.

:cool:

Here is an article from Mix magazine, which is actually an interview with his FOH sound guy:

http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_buddy_guy_2/

And here is a pic of him with his Telecaster Deluxe (note that the neck is a Strat neck):

[diamondsgirl]

Awesome review Hard Rock! Buddy is one of my all time favorite artists. Period. An album that I play over and over is "Damn Right I got the Blues"

His voice is filled with emotion. And I know exactly what you mean about his expressions...he fucking gets into his stuff like no other.

I could listen to him all day long.

He's pushing 70 and is still out there playing his heart out. I dig that. :cool:

thanks again...

[Matt White]

I saw him a few years ago IN ANN ARBOR st the State Theater.....

A POWERHOUSE performer!!!

SWEET TEA is in constant rotation at the WHITE HOUSE.

[Hardrock69]

He has many shows coming up in the next 2 months. Here are the current dates, as shown at pollstar.com:


Sun 08/21/05 Pinedale, WY Blues Festival
Thu 08/25/05 Green Bay, WI Oneida Casino
Fri 08/26/05 Thief River Falls, MN Seven Clans Casino
Fri 09/02/05 Highland Park, IL Ravinia Festival
Sat 09/03/05 Atlanta, GA Montreux Atlanta Music Festival
Mon 09/05/05 Indianapolis, IN Rib Fest
Fri 09/09/05 Saint Louis, MO Roberts Orpheum Theatre
Sat 09/10/05 Springfield, MO Greater Ozark Festival

appearing with "Farm Aid '05"

Sun 09/18/05 Tinley Park, IL Tweeter Center

Buddy Guy

Wed 09/21/05 New Orleans, LA House Of Blues
Thu 09/22/05 Houston, TX Verizon Wireless Theater
Fri 09/23/05 Fort Worth, TX Billy Bob's

appearing with "Austin City Limits Music Festival"

Sat 09/24/05 Austin, TX Zilker Park

Buddy Guy

Fri 09/30/05 Mobile, AL Saenger Theatre
Sat 10/01/05 Kansas City, MO Ameristar Hotel & Casino
Fri 10/07/05 Madison, WI Wisconsin Union Theater
Sun 10/09/05 Louisville, KY W.L. Lyons Brown Theatre
Fri 10/14/05 Roanoke, VA Jefferson Center
Thu 10/20/05 Red Bank, NJ Count Basie Theatre
Fri 10/21/05 Hampton Beach, NH Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
Sun 10/23/05 Collingswood, NJ Scottish Rite Auditorium
Thu 10/27/05 Mount Pleasant, MI Soaring Eagle Casino
Fri 10/28/05 Cleveland, OH House Of Blues
Fri 11/11/05 Vicksburg, MS Ameristar Casino
Sat 11/12/05 Vicksburg, MS Ameristar Casino
Thu 11/17/05 Jacksonville, FL Florida Theatre
Fri 11/18/05 Lake Buena Vista, FL House Of Blues
Sat 11/19/05 Clearwater, FL Ruth Eckerd Hall
Sun 11/20/05 West Palm Beach, FL Carefree Theatre
Thu 11/24/05 Porto Alegre, BRA Teatro Da Sesi
Fri 11/25/05 Sao Paulo, BRA CrediCard Hall
Sat 11/26/05 Rio De Janeiro, BRA Claro Hall
Wed 03/01/06 Mesa, AZ Arts Center

[Jérôme Frenchise]

Many thanks for the review HR69! Glad you had a great time!

I saw Buddy Guy last year in the North of France, and I'll never forget that concert.
I was surprised with the fact he hired rather young musicians to play along with him. I talked a little with the keyboardist who is from Chicago.
Buddy Guy plays on stage like nobody else does, at least as far as I know.
$5 is a hell of a bargain, but Buddy deserves so much more money.:(