Beacon 4/5/07

Jessica
Can’t Lose What You Never Had
Aint Wastin’ Time No More
Maydell > coda jam
One Way Out (Vince Esquire, gtr)
Statesboro Blues (Vince Esquire, gtr)
All along the Watchtower (Dave Mason, gtr/vox; Bruce Katz, keys)
Feelin’ Alright (Dave Mason, gtr/vox; Bruce Katz, keys)

Black Hearted Woman > The Other One jam
shuffle > Done Somebody Wrong (Luther Dickenson, gtr)
The Sky is Crying (Leslie West, vox/gtr, Bruce Katz, keys)
Crossroads (Leslie West, vox/gtr)
Les Brers > bass > drums > Les Brers

No One Left to Run With

The opening strums of “Jessica” are so soft and smooth, it makes you say “hunh!” to yourself. The playing through to the end of the opening theme is a springtime happy jaunt. Derek plays nice, easy melodic lines out of the theme, Warren adds some beautiful chording that turns it into the song again. Derek’s playing is magnificent, but he’s still holding back… finally he punches through and rings the big bell, then takes it back down again; it’s a happy time, and the place erupts as Warren steps up to join in on the familiar transitional lick and hand-off. He sends piercing, happy sloppy blues licks to some place in the back of your head, between the ears. He comes down for a sparse little happy dance, then trades licks with Derek… Oteil’s bass sings out in empathy to Derek’s plaintive call… Warren plays searing hot white breezy lines, then goes blue to return to the “Jessica” licks and theme. The whole bands leans hard on a long, gooey close; Butch pounds the sucka out, the crowd eats it up. Outstanding, sublime, the happy dust is going to spill over into the rest of the set.

On “Can’t Lose What You Never Had,” Warren is slow to enter on his solo… holds back… but when he does burst through, it is colorful and electric and thrilling (it’s a moment.) “Aint Wastin’ Time No More3” is right in the crowd’s strike zone, which is to say, familiar. Behind the vocals Derek’s accenting lines are as usual full of wist. Derek pulls high, almost-shrill notes from the strings on the outro solo as he heaves the slide up the neck; then Warren plays a heavy, “present” solo (Warren is in your face much of the night) and takes his hog out for a long, noisy ride. “Warren! Warren!” the Mule heads call.

Warren seems to know he’s hit the spot, and he almost teases, “How ya feelin’ this evening?” “Maydell” has a nice beat and you can dance to it, but out of the song the band falls into a nice shuffle that starts off as if it might flip to “Done Somebody Wrong.” Derek solos into the jam while Warren enjoys a brief beverage break. Warren returns to the front of stage, leans in, eyes Derek with that sort of mischievous glint, and chords him on; Oteil is, literally, hopping from one foot to the other… the jam turns into a Warren/Derek dialogue, bouncy lines back and forth over a bouncy beat. Warren turns all guitar hero, shreds, then the wah-wah that takes the band back to the riff of “Maydell” to an instrumental close. This post-song jam is another highlight.

Young Vince Esquire sits in with the band for the next two tunes. On “One Way Out,” Esquire plays a nice round, then wails… there’s a three-guitar huddle at center stage, Derek plays into the vocals, which Gregg lays on extra thick… then on “Statesboro Blues,” Esquire seems to be impressing the crowd, clearly more than he is impressing me.

Next up Warren introduces Dave Mason. Bruce Katz is on piano. And this is, I think, where maybe the Brothers lose control of the gig.

A nice epic riff, Mason wails in full volume and tone, then he takes lead vocals and it’s “All Along the Watchtower,” basically a cover of the Jimi version. Mason wails again, Marc arrives on a 30-foot wave over the vocals. Mason takes maybe 5 solos in the song, simple ones, not a lot of notes, but he knows how to please a crowd. Finally Warren gets a shot at the song’s end, and his sweet, sorrowful take hits Jimi’s classic lines; then he throws it with a head bob to Katz on piano. Derek plays some slippery slide, then Mason goes into the swirling vortex of the Jimi “Watchtower;” a big trippy finish, even if the selection feels a little bit “juke box-y.”

Katz plays a nice intro, into a swampy vamp that becomes “Feelin’ Alright,” a Joe Cocker song in Mason’s repertoire. The band hits a nice tasty groove; Mason is benefiting from this backing, perhaps more than the headliners are. There is a drum break, Jaimoe shakes your booty with Oteil, then Warren pinches off a solo… then a nice Derek rhythm with a little bit o’ soul (thank you Jaimoe)… Warren ignites, Oteil vamps, Katz joins in, Jaimoe reverberates the percolation.

And set. It is a really happy set; “Jessica” is outstanding, happy-making. The jam out of “Maydell” is a ton of fun. And “Feelin’ Alright” nicely bookends “Jessica” as a happy closer (thanks Marianne); you ponder, maybe the next time Susan Tedeschi sits in the band can cop this tune and make it their own. But 2 songs with Esquire is maybe one too many; and when the guest takes over the band—as Mason does—there is a risk that the flow of the show can go astray.

“Black Hearted Woman” opens the second set, one big sledgehammer blow. Warren makes his guitar cry out in pain over the triplet outro, Derek squares off, then the chorded phrase that shifts into “The Other One.” Derek lays out some ethereal Morse code from the rumble, then goes for the jugular, then pulls up into nether space. Warren and Oteil go there with him, Warren and Derek swap splashy, colorful figures, Oteil finds a frisky counter groove, Derek lays out wobbly twilight zone waves of tone, eerie, off kilter… the band aligns around the “Other One” riff, Derek hits the chords with Warren that start out as a call and response with the drummers but finally signal the return to the triplet outro and finish. A big, awesome take.

Next up Luther Dickinson joins over on Derek’s side for “Done Somebody Wrong.” The intro features three-guitar slide shuffle licks; Luther is down and dirty with the band. Derek’s tone is so sweet and pure… Luther plays low down, the devil to Derek’s angel… a long sustained ringing Derek note leads into the actual song, the band swinging like a porch swing. The guitars take drippy solos, Luther then Derek then Warren; Gregg comes in too early twice on vocals before hitting it. Warren plays some clear and present danger, Derek finishes up nicely out of the vocals.

Leslie West takes the stage, and again the band hands over the keys. West and Warren trade vocals on a slow blues, “The Sky is Crying.” Gregg and Katz play some nice keyboards together, West skronks out between Warren vocal lines, then takes a bluesy solo. Warren sings, and ivories are tickled; a sweet tinkly solo that hits the blues piano spot. West takes the energy up a notch on his solo, then Warren responds and Mule heads everywhere are hollering, “Warren! Warren!” All cylinders hit in an amped-up close… but it seems as if there is an awful lot of horsepower on stage for a slow blues… then the “Crossroads riff,” and another West lead vocal. Warren does some incendiary high end runs, he and West trade vocals and heavy leads, merging into a single two-headed front man…

…but it seems as if some of the players have fallen out of the show. Somehow the radiance and joy that washed over the room on the opening “Jessica” seems to have dissipated. The playing remains first rate, and most around me are thrilled and whooping… but the cues are there. By the time the core group gets the keys to the show back, there is only so much show left. They move into “Les Brers,” Oteil throwing out heavy splattering drops of thunder on the theme. Some nice rhythm guitar, then Gregg solos as the drummers accompany him, seemingly ripe and bursting out of the song. Gregg takes a nice ride, signals transition with a wave of his hand, Derek takes off, the band very much in the pocket as he plays staccato lines… the music cools… Derek plays lush, nasty slide lines, the band is in a hot pocket groove, and soloist and band melt together into a mass of white light with blue trim…

…descending into the solos. Jaimoe accompanies Derek and Oteil on bass; Oteil plays and scats “Along Came Ra,” from Sun Ra; the freaks hoot in recognition. Nice trio work; Jaimoe sprinkles silvery dust over the top… Marc joins on Butch’s kit… Oteil slaps out a groove, Derek finds the bass line to it, Oteil scats over it. This melody resolves, and the music momentarily pauses, then becomes… Jabuma (including Oteil.) It sounds like a Butch/Marc dialogue front-to-back, with Jaimoe and Oteil lending coloration and syncopation side to side… Oteil returns, lays down the “Les Brers” bass line, then Derek makes a colorful statement on a prolonged solo that leads from groove back to song. Warren shreds, then ends right where we started, on the harmony licks leading back to the theme.

“No One Left to Run With,” instantly recognizable, makes the crowd happy. Warren plays a soaring, elegiac solo, Derek offers graceful lines over a play-out groove. Derek wails against the beat. The band omits the recent improvisational explorations on this tune, instead playing it straight, appropriate as an encore.

The show started out on a supremely high note, one of the most pleasing versions of “Jessica” ever. But somewhere along the way, the band, probably in the throes of all the guest firepower, lost the chi of the show. Now to be fair, if this was the only Allman Brothers show you saw all year, you were suitably blown away. But something ineffable seemed to drain as the night wore on, this is not a band that needs four guitarists sitting in (although Luther can come back on around any time), and even though almost every song is played in top form, the cohesiveness is missing, the center is askew, the guest spots just go on too long.

I’m guessing that tomorrow night kicks rocking butt.

Added:  Sunday, April 08, 2007
Reviewer:  josh chasin
Score:
hits: 824