Re: (RL) Boston gig

[KWood@lightbridge.com]

My 2c on th' Boston gig:

Steve Wynn's set was plagued by sound problems, but I admire the band for
not losing their spirit.  Their music was great, but the songs have very
little in the way of melodies (to my untrained ear) and the lyrics struck
me as kind of forced and uninteresting.  It's not very nice to say that of
course, but that's my honest and unadulterated opinion!

Richard's set was a blast.  His vocals sound much better live than they do
on the cd and they seemed to mesh with the music perfectly.  I don't like
his lyrics a whole lot either, but they grew on me a bit last night.  His
guitar playing was volcanic and captivating, and it was good to see him
occasionally trade licks with the bass player, who was likewise a
phenomenal performer.  I'd like to see more of that sort of musical
interplay in the future.  The rhythm guitar player was very charming but
seemed relegated to churing out chords for Richard to play and sing over,
which is fine and all, but makes things a little too comfortable in my
opinion.  A band should only (very) rarely be simply an extension of one
person's vision, and that's perhaps at the very core of what bugs me about
almost every solo project I've ever seen.  There's no Lennon/Mcartney
tension to challenge, encourage or throw wrenches into the gears of one
member's ideas, and I think it's that very tension that gives birth to true
collaborative genious, and music, despite all the recording gear in the
world, is a collaborative art once it hits that stage.

Unfortunately, but somehow perhaps justly, it is also that very tension
that sends the members of great bands running for their home studios in the
first place!  There's an old buddhist quote somewhere about how a small
group of alpha male monkeys in a kitchen can make a really great soup, but
usually end up throwing it at each other and kicking over the pot before
anyone else gets more than a taste...

Anyways, that said, I was seriously entertained, and stood there gaping
pretty much the whole damn time!  I shook Richard's hand at the end of the
show and he was extremely friendly and disarming.

-kent


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