Topic: Introducing Joe Bonamassa & Live From Nowhere in Particular Disc 1
I am wonderful. I am great. I am here. Three 3 word sentences you’ll likely never hear Joe Bonamassa parse together. But I’m here to tell you, Joe Bonamassa IS wonderful. Joe Bonamassa IS great. And, just in case you have not heard, Joe Bonamassa is HERE! The declaration is made just through the musical languages of his thoroughly amazing guitars and evocative, highly emotive singing. The proof is in the putting together a very tasteful treatise served up hot on a double CD. Coming to you Live from Utica, New York…Ooops! Wait. Wait! It’s Joe Bonamassa “Live From Nowhere In Particular”!
Wherever there actually was. It doesn’t really matter either. Those who attended any U.S.A. Fall 2007 Joe Bonamassa concert already knows where “in particular” is. It was wherever they were. Even Europeans who attended the preceding summer shows were there. Rather than being warm-up shows, those were the perfecting stages, as it were. So Europe, you were there (http://houseofrockinterviews.blogspot.com/2008/09/conversation-from-nowhere-in-particular.html-Germany makes one cut!) . You & Me, we were there. Unless of course you weren’t there and missed it all…
WHAT you missed was wonderful. What you missed was GREAT. What you missed is HERE! This marks a special time in Joe Bonamassa’s career. It’s breakout time. Not a breakout of chains. Not a breakout of a slump. Not a breakout of the box of conventional thinking. Bonamassa’s never been unwilling to buck convention. Hence releasing yet another recorded live concert. Not during a down sliding career, not to fulfill any contractual obligation, nor due to any drought of material or direction. This is actually his third, and ironically his first without video. The emphasis is now purely on the music of the man, not video with music demonstrating, in gut punch fashion, an answer to “Who is this Bonamassa guy”? Recorded as he had just turned in his first 30 years of living, Joe seems to be releasing far more than 30 years of life to us here. It’s almost as if
Joe Bonamassa is breaking out of the cocoon. Time to breakout, spread those wings and fly.
So you’ve never heard of Joe Bonamassa before? Well, take a good listen.
The debate which used to take place over where to start amongst his seven preceding achievements is no longer relevant.
Start here, at the great number eight. Trust me, you’ll definitely want to back track when you start here.
Long standing fans will tell you-truthfully, this is how it sounds, how it is to be “there”.
I’ll also tell you-truthfully, it’s not as complete as bearing actual witness “there”. Joe Bonamassa must be seen live both to be believed and to be fully appreciated. Here’s the rub: His music truly satisfies equally well whether a studio or stage recording! Which led to a dilemma. In the final stages of post-production, producer Kevin Shirley had essentially muted the audience members to keep superfluous, incongruous noises from the end product. Obviously to focus on the music. Yet it sounded too sterile, likely too good. And that is a reflection on the musical abilities of Joe & his band mates. Much attention is given Shirley, rightfully so. But what a dream task to glean material from the working palettes of such talented individuals, including the outstanding crew of Jay Phebus (FOH Engineer), Dave Pate (Guitar Tech), Aaron Lakner (Drum Tech & Monitor Engineer). Outstanding to the point it may have been surmised that someone who had never listened to any Joe Bonamassa recordings before might have a difficult time imagining that the material could be recorded so well and actually be performed in front of live audiences. But it was. So, it was given the meticulous work over once again, and the results are phenomenal. It’s live, and now your experience listening to it, whether in your living room, automobile, or on your mobile music device, puts you as close to being there as possible.
Let’s queue these discs featuring Joe Bonamassa (guitars & vocals), Rick Melick (keyboards), Bogie Bowles (drums) & Carmine Rojas (bass) up & explore.
Things open up with first a twitch from a theremin, then keys and the rhythm section. Finally, a short ding on triangle is the signal to turn on the chunky power chords of Bridge To Better Days, a slick salvo that’s a testy testament to Joe Bonamassa’s rock solid chops. It’s a Bonamassa original and yet within that context he is sounding like he’s Eric Clapton (while in Cream) & Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and himself all at once. It even progresses as ZZ Top might perform it, granted with a keyboard, but that fills in nicely where Pat Thrall’s second guitar from the You & Me cut left some openings.
Moving along into Walk In My Shadows, the Free song that’s been in his repertoire for years now and was revamped from his original A New Day Yesterday and A New Day Yesterday Live barreling down on you like a bullet train versions to an evolution, which began in about 2006, reminiscent of a winding, chugging, cruising ride with more stops, starts, twists and turns. All at less than half speed and a reduction in guitar solo notes by a factor of perhaps fourscore. Here its treatment is accentuated by Carmine Rojas’ bass inflected funky bluesy bounce. It remains a perennial crowd favorite that invites young and old to march along in Joe Bonamassa’s shadow.
The third track is the haunting, swelling slow cooker by Paul Marshall, So Many Roads. Like several following arrangements, especially the upcoming Mountain Time, it seems to have a life of its own, a physical movement enmeshed within the musical movement, much like some classical music compositions. With a resonating vocal and a blistering solo this one builds anticipation& delivers excitement at the same time. Compared to the studio version, the guitar solo is cut from two to being combined into one, and the effect is dramatic onstage.
Jaunting into India/Mountain Time, I find live India sounds less like a sitar influenced guitar, as it was done acoustically on “Sloe Gin ”. Here it’s more like an electrified snake charmers pipe coming from his Gigliotti guitar. Talk about versatility! This segues into Mountain Time which constitutes another totally rearranged tune, written by Joe Bonamassa with his life long friend Will Jennings’ wonderful spellbinding lyrics. The combination with the evocative vocals Bonamassa can forcefully or subtly deliver moves one alliteratively and seemingly literally with the physical movement within the musical movement feeling I described, up a mountain until seven minutes later we hear the last “yeeeeaaaahhhhh”, punctuated by a short, sweet “Hah”! The airy summit has been reached and the excitement of getting there, which has alluded (musically and lyrically) to an emotional seeking of a destiny of undeniable good, is now felt as pure joy to be “there”.
Next, yet another in the travel section of the set list (crossing bridges, walking in shadows, riding down roads and on trains). Now we get lost in Another Kinda Love, which continues to grow on me The first time I heard this live I thought each musician went meandering in their own little world. I was not able to get the house mixing board perspective, which at a distance further away from the stage comes across perfect. This is actually how it sounded. . Rick Melick turns in a great piano solo and Bowles drumming here is, as it was on So Many Roads, top notch. But he, and indeed the entire group will only outdo themselves on our next stop…After getting lost we have a Tim Curry song about a character ending up dying on a city sidewalk drinking Sloe Gin attempting and failing to ease away grief and pain and loneliness, but possibly actually succeeding by passing away unnoticed until it is too late, or in the best possible spin, nearly so. Here you will find not so much an attempt at recreating the fantastic guitar solo of the studio version Sloe Gin, but a scathing, visceral, solo that Joe Bonamassa conjures up from somewhere deep in the Deep blue C (chord transitions) of loneliness transposed, even when one listens between the notes, into an audible oracle on a personal crisis becoming a self-fulfilling demise.
Last but not least side one takes the musical journey full circle with the crunchy, very distorted guitar and undulating power rhythm of One Of These Days. Rick Melick shakes a tambourine to simulate the chain-gang bound drudgery, which came about by accident on the Sloe Gin album when Anton Fig dropped his bag of percussion goodies and a microphone captured it and it was sampled into the song. Imagery builds to the, burden-laden, slogging along while daydreaming protagonist’s vision or actual release via his woman’s reconciliation. The beautiful slide and piano outro uses Bonamassa’s and Melick’s imagery to drift this side trip back to track one and that bridge to better days.
FLIPPING OVER TO DISC 2
TO BE CONTINUED....
In the meantime, of course,
Rock On & Keep the Faith & Spread the word
"http://jbonamassa.com/tour-dates/
"Everybody wants ta get inta the act!"
“Now, this isn’t your ordinary party crowd, here. I mean, there are professionals in here.”
Libby
