Tommy Emmanuel - Warwick Arts Centre 09/03/209
Mar 10, 2019 9:55:21 GMT
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Post by delb0y on Mar 10, 2019 9:55:21 GMT
Motorcyclists have a thing about speed. Speed is good. Hundreds of thousands of people (myself included) flock to wonder at Valentino Rossi's brilliance and yet only a handful go to view Dougie Lampkin's insane and out-of-this world mastery of balance and control. Guitar players are similar. From day one we marvel at the fastest players. Speed, to start with is, is everything. Yet as time goes on, as the years pass, I think we start to realise that speed alone doesn't mean much. That there are other things equally as important. A few more years roll by and that "equally as" becomes "more".
Now, Tommy Emmanuel is fast. Boy, is he fast. Tommy is the Marc Marquez of guitar players. Whilst everyone else is getting their knee down and grinning at how quick they are, Tommy is, like Marc, getting his elbow down too. Raising sparks from his elbow. At 200 mph.
The good news is - like Marc and Valentino - Tommy brings the other important stuff to the table too. He's a charming and lovely man. He writes some beautiful and moving tunes (clearly I'm no longer talking about Valentino and Marc). He's a great entertainer and showman. His singing voice is very good too - way better than on a DVD I have from many years ago. His between songs stories were great - and full of good advice and observations for musicians and song-writers (certainly I came away inspired). He has raised the art of the one-man acoustic finger-picking show to a new level. He's found a style and a repertoire and a way of putting it across that appeals to thousands, rather than the hundreds (tens?) that usuallyflock amble to finger-picking gigs.
But, lord is he fast.
There are moments, other than the the fast ones, when Tommy does stuff on a guitar that seems frankly impossible. His Beatles' medley - especially Day Tripper - is just awe-inspiring. There are chords and bass-lines and melodies that are all played simultaneously and with a separation of tone and articulation that surely can't be done by one man. His right hand is able to change from strumming to (very fast) picking, to thumb-picking to playing harmonics all in the blink of an eye.
I must admit, I've always been a bit more of YouTube Tommy Emmanual fan, rather than a buy Tommy's music fan. What I mean by this, is I like him playing the old standards and jamming and teaching more than I like his original and/or studio music (although last night he did play a song - written by Mark Knopfler- from his new album that I will definitely search out). There are other acoustic guitar-players who's albums I prefer. His tone last night was a bit electric for me. It's beautiful and shimmering and when he uses dropped tunings the bass notes resonate like nothing else, but it all feels a little artificial. He has the sound hole plugged up and so much gain, that the slightest tap on the guitar body produces his trademark percussion / drum sound and any hammer-on with his left hand produces a big loud note (ideal for the one handed section of the night). Although I might be doing him an injustice - perhaps he's the greatest hammer-on-er ever! I guess there are limited options around this: if you need to amplify a guitar in a hall holding thousands of people then what do you do?
At the end of the night Tommy got his support man - JD Simo - back up. I didn't get to the gig in time to see JD's set but I'd seen him on the web. JD came on with a 335 and played some (I think, very good) lead over the top of Working Man's Blues and Dock of the Bay. His voice is brilliant. But the guitar was so echoey and distorted it was kind of hard to hear the notes. It was all a little "jammy" and karaoke, if I'm honest.
All in all, it was an entertaining and an enjoyable gig. But the lasting impression, and thing that resonates most this morning, is that I've never heard Cannonball Rag played so fast. I've never heard Guitar Boogie Shuffle anywhere close as fast. I've never heard anyone play bluegrass lead lines so rapidly (it was just a little throwaway mickey-take of Kentucky pickers and their 2nd fret capos).
Tommy is fast.
And, for you Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez fans out there - don't forget that MotoGP 2019 starts today.
Derek
Now, Tommy Emmanuel is fast. Boy, is he fast. Tommy is the Marc Marquez of guitar players. Whilst everyone else is getting their knee down and grinning at how quick they are, Tommy is, like Marc, getting his elbow down too. Raising sparks from his elbow. At 200 mph.
The good news is - like Marc and Valentino - Tommy brings the other important stuff to the table too. He's a charming and lovely man. He writes some beautiful and moving tunes (clearly I'm no longer talking about Valentino and Marc). He's a great entertainer and showman. His singing voice is very good too - way better than on a DVD I have from many years ago. His between songs stories were great - and full of good advice and observations for musicians and song-writers (certainly I came away inspired). He has raised the art of the one-man acoustic finger-picking show to a new level. He's found a style and a repertoire and a way of putting it across that appeals to thousands, rather than the hundreds (tens?) that usually
But, lord is he fast.
There are moments, other than the the fast ones, when Tommy does stuff on a guitar that seems frankly impossible. His Beatles' medley - especially Day Tripper - is just awe-inspiring. There are chords and bass-lines and melodies that are all played simultaneously and with a separation of tone and articulation that surely can't be done by one man. His right hand is able to change from strumming to (very fast) picking, to thumb-picking to playing harmonics all in the blink of an eye.
I must admit, I've always been a bit more of YouTube Tommy Emmanual fan, rather than a buy Tommy's music fan. What I mean by this, is I like him playing the old standards and jamming and teaching more than I like his original and/or studio music (although last night he did play a song - written by Mark Knopfler- from his new album that I will definitely search out). There are other acoustic guitar-players who's albums I prefer. His tone last night was a bit electric for me. It's beautiful and shimmering and when he uses dropped tunings the bass notes resonate like nothing else, but it all feels a little artificial. He has the sound hole plugged up and so much gain, that the slightest tap on the guitar body produces his trademark percussion / drum sound and any hammer-on with his left hand produces a big loud note (ideal for the one handed section of the night). Although I might be doing him an injustice - perhaps he's the greatest hammer-on-er ever! I guess there are limited options around this: if you need to amplify a guitar in a hall holding thousands of people then what do you do?
At the end of the night Tommy got his support man - JD Simo - back up. I didn't get to the gig in time to see JD's set but I'd seen him on the web. JD came on with a 335 and played some (I think, very good) lead over the top of Working Man's Blues and Dock of the Bay. His voice is brilliant. But the guitar was so echoey and distorted it was kind of hard to hear the notes. It was all a little "jammy" and karaoke, if I'm honest.
All in all, it was an entertaining and an enjoyable gig. But the lasting impression, and thing that resonates most this morning, is that I've never heard Cannonball Rag played so fast. I've never heard Guitar Boogie Shuffle anywhere close as fast. I've never heard anyone play bluegrass lead lines so rapidly (it was just a little throwaway mickey-take of Kentucky pickers and their 2nd fret capos).
Tommy is fast.
And, for you Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez fans out there - don't forget that MotoGP 2019 starts today.
Derek
