Topic: David Gogo/Wisbone Ash
Drove down to Regensburg with Thomas yesterday evening to see Wishbone Ash for the first time ever - and I think they just made a new fan.
David Gogo opened up for them and boy, he ripped the roof off that place ... funny enough we talked about opening acts before the show and agreed that they can be annoying at times (when you already stood for 2 hours to get to the best spot in front of the stage and they play for hours and hours ....). Well, I think David Gogo came to proove HOW good opening acts can be. I would have watched a full show even if Wishbone Ash played another 3 hours after that ... David mostly played his own material (a lot of stuff from his new album called "Vibe"), which was what I´d call "classical Blues rock" - with emphasis on ROCK. His slide-playing was awesome and of course he did the good old beer bottle trick too... his last song was the wildest version of "Hoochie Coochie Man" I´ve ever heard - at first I thought: "Why do they always have to play these songs that have been done so often and can´t be played any better anyway?!", but well - I was wrong again. If you´ve got the chance to see this guy, go see him - he rocks and seems to be a very nice guy too.
Then - Wishbone Ash: they started off with some "laid back" rock music, or as Andy Powell said: "Nice and easy, folks..." - I liked that a lot, but first thought they´d sound a bit too "clean" for me ... that surely changed after they had played a few songs and started playing all those long "jam-songs" with the famous sound of the two lead guitars. Andy played his Flying V (I think a guy from England builds them) and Muddy Manninen used the good old LP - Marshall combination for most of the gig. Thomas told me that someone had stolen nearly all their guitars one night before their show in Nürnberg two weeks ago ... a musician´s nightmare ...
Well, these two guys really know how to play guitar and they had their best moments when trading licks during the instrumental jam parts ... together they had the perfect mixture of epic rock sound and some soulful bluesy tunes.
I don´t remeber the whole setlist, but I believe they played a lot of songs of the Argus album, which has been re-recorded live in 2008 - I bought the CD after the show and it´s really great. As I said in the beginning: I think these guys made a new fan.
I also ended up buying David Gogo´s album, but haven´t listened yet how he sounds like on a studio album ... more about that later.
Eva
P.S.: Side note on Wishbone Ash fans - believe it or not, these folks might be even crazier than us! Thomas and I met up with a woman from Stuttgart (whom I already knew from various other Blues rock shows - I try to convince her each and every time that Joe is NOT an arrogant a**, which she seems to believe) and she had seen the last 7 (!) shows of this Germany tour. David Gogo offered to talk to Andy for her and get her a discount - "buy 6 Wishbone Ash tickets, get one for free" ...