Beacon 4/6/07 (Chasin)

Trouble No More
Don't Keep Me Wondering
Hot 'Lanta
Come & Go Blues
Leave My Blues at Home
Egypt
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (w/Jukes Horns)
And It Stoned Me (w/Jukes Horns)
The Same Thing (w/Jukes Horns)

Key To The Highway (Peter Frampton, gtr)
Born Under A Bad Sign (Peter Frampton, gtr)
Midnight Rider
The Weight (w/Jukes Horns)
Loving You Too Long (w/Jukes Horns)
Liz Reed w/ Carmine Appice, drums)> bass > drums > Liz Reed

Southbound (Jukes, Frampton)

Tonight was what you call “in the pocket.”

Out of the gate the band puts its metaphorical head down and gets to business, beginning the set with a five-song blast of foundation Allman Brothers music which touches pretty much all the fundamental bases. “Trouble No More” plants a stake in the ground; Oteil is happy, Warren’s head shakes to the groove. Derek’s silvery slide is a nice counterpart to Gregg’s vocals. “Don’t Keep Me Wondering” features Derek’s usual old school slide workout; Oteil clicks with the drummers, his head bobbing to a Butch beat. Tight, to the point, all Allmans.

“Hot ‘Lanta” makes this 1-2-3 opening truly classical, straight from the roots of the band. Oteil, particularly frisky tonight, is full and round, and your chest vibrates to the joybeat. Gregg’s hands flash across the B3, Derek takes a nice fretted solo. Then Warren takes you to town, and a full-on finish, with some Jaimoe juice over the top. Then “Come and Go Blues.” Nothing fancy, just a four-song blast of why you came in the first place. Warren and his big birthday eyebrows take a nice, well-crafted mid-song solo.

“Leave My Blues at Home” keeps the vibe earthbound, but tonight earthbound means in the ground, as in grounded… Warren rides the hard outro with incendiary waves, Derek solos, then the two of them embrace leads for the twin licks… ripping it up, smiling at each other as they drive the song home. From here, they can pretty much go anywhere…

…so they do. Marc lays down el piquante, clearing the decks for a mystical “Egypt.” Oteil plays a nice, deep counterpoint to the twin guitar theme lines… Derek begins by unspooling some tone, then weaving lines in a solo full of attitude. Warren watches him, chords along, pushes; Derek leans over in Oteil’s direction, pulls him without words into a 2-man vortex, into a gentle landing over the welcoming arms of the drums…

…Warren and Derek play slow, cascading lines evocative of the song’s melody; Warren tosses off the “Norwegian Wood” lick, then accelerates off it into the heart of the volcano… then he takes you to a totally different place, a ripping, foreboding, driving minor key place… he goes double time… Oteil and the drummers are composing along with him… then all down to the wire and into the theme. Kind of exquisite.

If the first 5 songs were the earthy portion of the set, and “Egypt” the airborne part, then what follows can only be described as… the brassy portion. The Asbury Jukes horn section sets up over past Oteil; Chris Anderson and Mark Pender on trumpet, La Bamba on trombone, Joey Stann on sax (thanks Paulie.) They play a sour, brass elegy that becomes “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” There is a wall of horns, nicely arranged—the Jukes at an Allman Brothers show are, I think, all about the charts—with sweet and sour harmonics. Derek takes a brief lead over the break; he is totally feeling the song. Then on the solo section he lets loose, an elegant solo that is drenched in the pain of the song, but that uses melody and tone to transform that pain to joy. Then, on cue, the na-na-na-na-na-na part.

“And it Stoned Me” is a great song that was relatively uneventful last Saturday, but it is a garnished treat tonight. Warren’s vocals and the horn replies are the story, until Derek gets the big nod and makes a nosedive into the song… La Bamba plays some defiant, jaunty New Orleans funeral trombone… then Warren dunks you in the river with his beastly guitar, seemingly caged by the song’s structure, but that is a nice effect. Then vocals again, backed by horn charts, and Derek slides up to a pretty close. They stone me just like jelly roll.

The boys break out “The Same Thing” to close the set, always a good idea, and with the Jukes around, a great one. It hits the Beacon hard, all brassy sassy bam, Oteil literally dances around La Bamba as he plays a trombone line on the extended intro. (Someone is sitting in for Jaimoe, but I don’t know who.) Stann blows from the gut right out of the vocals, Warren takes a quick solo break; Oteil, facing the drummers, pivots so his body faces Warren. Back to the vocals, then the horns together, spanking, sparkling. Oteil takes a solo vamp over the “Same Thing” groove, goes all funk, Derek picks it up and chords with him, Oteil shaking his head to pull the notes wider. Pender blasts over the top, excellent improv soloing, finding the right space; Oteil is pulling energy from him—you can see it happening if you watch the two of them—and feeding it back… While Oteil is a rhythm stick, the guitars trade lines, with the horns keeping time by chiming in on the 7 and 8 counts… Unstoppable, swirling energy, like a tornado sucking everything in its path and channeling it into forward momentum… Oteil and Butch lock as Derek wails… then the horns are all over the song’s riff, shiny, and drive the song and set to a close. Whew.

As the second set begins, Peter Frampton is set up center stage. Last year, Frampton’s guest stint was one of the Beacon sit-in highlights. He does not disappoint on his return engagement. Warren plays some heavy blooz heat to bring in “Key to the Highway;” out of the vocals, Frampton has a nice classic tone and totally “gets it.” Derek and Warren are both visibly digging Frampton as he steps to the front of the stage, kicks a pedal, amps it up for his second run, and plays a nice blues solo, to applause. (Personal note: sadly for Johnny Flash, no talk box.) Out of the second vocal section Derek plays some lite, creamy Derek Trucks Band-style figures, then goes down to the bottom by flying up the neck. Frampton’s final foray is electric, leading back into the final vocal section.

The riff to “Born Under a Bad Sign” comes on heavy and ominous, with some nice Warren licks darting over and around it, into Warren’s vocals. The band makes it a funk as Derek rides the tiger on his solo; vocals, then Frampton steps forward, wails, pulls melodic, driving lines, the band realigns around him, a cool success… then Frampton just tears it up old school… and back to the vocals. Frampton and Derek trade smiles, Derek gets the big nod and goes, a slow deliberate attack, sparse flat sheets of tone, giving way to a classy high-toned 6-stringed three-way. Frampton and Warren connect; Warren throws everything he has at Frampton, something ha cannot do with every guest; but Frampton fields it ably and channels it back. Oteil is making low-down magic with the drums… then, whew! Back into the vocals. Heck of a ride. Frampton is summoned back by the appreciative crowd, and he steps to the mic and says a quick word of thanks. Warren, the birthday boy, is happy.

After a traditional take on “Midnight Rider,” the Jukes are back. Derek plays some Mississippi slide that slams into “The Weight.” Oteil is so ebullient he actually gives the horns the thumbs up sign. The horns provide a light backing to the second verse, then Warren plays a happy, non-blues fretted solo, then heavy into the verse; finally Derek plays out of the last verse, leading into a soul revue outro; interesting how different this reading is from the recent Susan Tedeschi-led takes, as the band flexes from blues mama to Memphis soul… Next Warren and Oteil play some sweet, slow siren song, which when Warren sings becomes “Loving You Too Long.” The horns ascend on Warren’s vocals, then Derek enters into a duel with the Jukes, sounds all metal as he picks up the horn vibe and filters it into taffy waves of painful joy.

Derek introduces “Elizabeth Reed” with a tone poem as the band descends from chaos to bliss; Derek keeps ringing the Beacon as he soars through the not-yet-song groove, until finally Warren delicately strums the chords and the band eases seamlessly into the theme. On the first solo Derek plays loud, long, languid, full, ringing, rewarding lines that take you inside yourself… and of course, while you’re there, you barely notice that he’s accelerated into an intense pay-off that climaxes, of course, in the hand-off licks for Gregg’s part. Warren plays a Tommy gun of a solo, small spatters of heat as Oteil steps it up, and Warren and the band take a ride in Oteil’s funk truck. Then Warren shifts into high gear, transition licks, and then drums signal the break…

The drums recede as Derek and Oteil each change instruments for their new 2-bass hit. Oteil plays around with a melody line, scats to it, then gives Derek a bass line. Derek takes it, slows it as Marc and Jaimoe provide deft accompaniment. Finally, Oteil does some slap back to set the percussion beast in motion… Oteil moves to Butch’s kit, someone is on Jaimoe’s. (Now I know: Carmine Appice. How he managed to miss Leslie West by a night I do not know.) The vibe shifts as Marc finds a groove with Appice… Butch moves to timpani, almost summoning the ABBeast back out of the bottle… Jaimoe is back, dropping splashes in all the right colors… the full band returns, moving slowly to the close. There is some kind of Warren/Oteil pow-wow; then the drums return to the “Liz Reed” rhythm, Oteil all around it, the band moves into a brief guitar jam, then finally back to the theme and close.

Frampton and the Jukes are on stage for the encore, so of course it will be “Southbound.” But, my friends, not just any “Southbound.” The horns hit BIG on licks between Greg’s vocal lines; Frampton unrolls rubbery red lines, then tears it up. A round of horn blasts, straight down the line; Oteil obviously tickled by his stage neighbors. Derek uses every inch of the neck in a romp of a run… then Pender hits a note, THE note, holds it past the solo breaks and into the song, until that one note is the center of the universe; by the time he breaks, Oteil is fanning him with a hat. (I have a brief “Scrubs”-like vision: Pender faints backward into Farmer’s arms, Farmer cloaks him in a robe to carry him off, then Pender springs up James Brown-style, shakes him off, and hits the note again… but I’m pretty sure that was just in my head.) Oteil points to the horn section in acknowledgement, and he and Derek put their heads together, make each other crack up in a mid-stage summit; clearly they are having as much fun as the rest of us up there on stage, and very likely more. I believe that Oteil secretly wants to be a Juke; their obvious delight is infectious.

Warren points to Oteil to play the final turnaround, he does, and everyone lands hard on an emphatic finish. Can I get an amen!

It is a very good night, and you are happy. A long, redemptive evening. It has been a relatively low-jam show, but you feel positively drained as you stagger out into the cold night and look for your friends out along Broadway, and in the nearby pubs. Somehow the night is young and full of possibilities…

Added:  Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Reviewer:  josh chasin
Score:
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