Westbury......

I was there, too, and the sound in the theatre was amazing--it's really a great venue--and it seemed like Joe was totally in the groove. This is about my 11th time seeing him in the past 3 years and I think and he was totally on. Unfortunately we got stuck in traffic coming in from NYC so I missed the first 2 songs--soo bummed to have missed John Henry.

The intro to Sloe Gin that he did was AMAZING. Like totally.  However, he still doesn't know the words to his own song (I think he should listen to his CD till he learns the words!) (Sorry, I'm a little anal!) BUT at least he did do that cool guitar swipe thing after the part of the lyrics that says 'stormy seas' (for a few concerts he left that out and that totally makes the lyrics a million times more powerful IMHO).

I loved the way the guitars were in a big line in a big case at the back of the stage. Not sure if it's always been like that, but never noticed it before.

I thought that Quarry Man was amazing. And overall, throughout, his guitar solos were amazing and took us all to a different place in the universe I think! People were whooping it up during his guitar solos but I think that was because he was whipping us up into an internal frenzy and some people had the compulsion to articulate what they were feeling.

His Led Zeppelin was especially long and articulate and I want more LZ!

The crowd did seem to have the need to constantly get up and leave their seats (where the heck were so many people going all the time?) Since it was such a small theatre it was especially noticeable. And, I agree, people need to shut up and just listen and appreciate the genius beheld them instead of having to comment to their friend and ruining the moments for the rest of us!

I only have one critique and that is that Joe sometimes, or often, sings way too loud.

I'm not a musical person so I don't really know how to define the problem, but he has such huge lung capacity and his voice really bellows and it's just too loud, even dissonant. Especially that one song where he does that one long long long note that he holds. I just think that someone like Aretha Franklin, heck, Mariah Carey, can do that sort of thing, but it's just not that great when he does it. And at some points in some songs at a certan point in the lyrics he shifts over into that loud voice and it kind of breaks the spell of the song/music. Sometimes he steps away from the microphone when he does it and that's better. But I thnk he should cut that yelling out all together, I don't think that's his strong suit His voice is GREAT, just not when he does THAT with it. I'm not saying not to have passion and it works in many of his songs, it's just those poitns where its too loud, too harsh, just a lot wind but nothing musical about it, IMHO!  ON the CDs this is filtered out somehow, but live it's not. His soft and/or guy-like rock voice is better than trying to do the soprano thing. I've noticed that his voice has gotten a million times better in the past 3 years but this loud thing is still there.

But then again, what the heck do I know? I do know that despite this, I'm addicted to seeing Joe and must get my dose as often as possible!

Would love to hear others' thoughts on last night's show...

The Westbury show was my first Joe show. It was much better than my already high expectations. What's great about Joe is that he displays and shares his talent in every song with 2 or 3 solos. I've recently attended Clapton & Winwood at MSG, Leslie West at the Boulton Center (great little venue), and Jonny Lang at Westbury. All great performers, but they limit their guitar solos to a couple of songs. I was suprised at the general age of the audience, not too many people youger than Joe! I am annoyed that Joe gets no radio play in the NY area and I listen to CT stations as well as 107.1 the Peak. Is it because he's in the dreaded "Blues" category? There are other "Blues" artists that I recently began enjoying, but they also get zero air play. I'll list them in the "other artists" group.