Topic: Reviews of PBS aired Greek Theatre Shows
First and foremost spoiler alert if you haven't seen it aired on your local PBS you might want to wait and see it for yourself before reading here.
I'm going to start off with what I know will be unpopular, but we're all Joe's fans and always will be so I think we can take it. I was underwhelmed for sure and I find myself wondering if Joe's management is pushing him too hard to pump out work that's not quite ready. I realize PBS only shows part of the entire show, but the concert, while incredibly well set up with the whole big band/backup singers thing, kind of flat-lined for me after the first few songs. It's like it wasn't really Joe's style of playing, but it sure as heck wasn't any of the 'King's' styles either. It was just some odd 'in between'. I decided to just fast forward to the guitar solo's in each song and in almost every case I felt like I was listening to the same solo each time, and, although I haven't done it with my guitar yet, seemed like everything was in the same key as well (I'm sure it wasn't). Joe just doesn't do this style of thing.
I just felt there was no 'Joe' in the songs. No highs, no lows, soft, hard. It's not like he was trying to do carbon copies of the originals, but it just sounded incredibly repetitious to me. I have, and will. give it many more listens. But as it stands now I am left wondering if Joe needs a break to get some time to work out what he would like to play as a guitar solo on each cut. It would take considerably longer to get the show ready, but would absolutely be worth the wait in my opinion.