19.53. Hartford, Connecticut.
Backtracking…
Wednesday 18th. June:
The venue: the Electric Factory in Philly.
Not so good. No sound until 17.00: we only had 5 minutes to set me up before the doors opened, supposedly to a Soundscapes performance already underway. Unfortunately, the pedals were incorrectly plugged & the first 25 minutes of an 80-minute set were compromised. Nevertheless, the general consensus was we got wherever we were going.
Conversation with Steve Vai: he finds the DGM Newsletter No. 1 "very intuitive". His own experience of Flexable mirrors it. Horror stories of bootlegging in Bangkok & a Warner’s man murdered in Russia.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd joined the tour last night. He has already played three shows with G3 before. A superb young player: the tradition lives in him. Steve and Joe cooking, as always.
The first night of the jam I couldn't hear myself. The second night I couldn't hear Joe, Steve and Mike. The third night it was my turn to take a solo, having spent time comping and feeling a way in. The Factory was my debut in the front line, albeit from the rear. But my rig didn’t work. Nothing. When you have equipment this sophisticated, it needs more than 5 minutes to set up. Steve very generously offered me his guitar to take a blast but I use a different tuning and, honoured as I was to have been offered another guitarist's guitar, it wouldn't have worked. I felt wretched at letting the team down.
Unhappy, I didn't get to sleep until nearly three. Up at 07.15 for the van at eight and a four-and-a-half-hour drive to Hartford.
At 14.00 all G4 met for a rehearsal - the first time we've played together other than playing together. You’ve Really Got Me - Kinks via Van Halen – is added to the encores. The last time I played that tune was on tour with Peter Gabriel in the spring of 1977 and (the superb) Steve Hunter was taking the solos. Tonight it's Steve, Kenny and Joe. I'm the third solo on Going Down and Red House.
Comping behind this team is a pleasure in itself, and sufficiently satisfying; working with players this good, a privilege. But as part of the G3 tradition, it's appropriate that I burn and squirtle along with the front line.
My respect for Joe and Steve is deepening. They are so straightforward to work with. No side, no competition, and superlative players. The history of the tradition lives in their fingers and then moves sideways to support their own views of it.
What was interesting with Kenny, and heartening, was to see how the tradition moves between generations and continues to live. I've "heard" most of what he plays before. In an older man’s hands, it might even be cliche. But Kenny is discovering what the music holds and, in his discovering and absorption of it, the tradition is rediscovered; and through rediscovery the tradition is brought to life again.
Being on stage with this team is really something.
The Satriani rhythm section of Stu and Mr. Drummer is a beautiful supportive pocket to work over. In a Crimson context, there is no notion of supporting a solo in any sense that we have it here. A Crimson “solo” is a context in which anyone other than the "soloist" can get going. Silence is something to be jumped into, rather than savoured. Here, if you draw breath between phrases, the next phrase is waiting when you get to it. In Crimson if you draw breath, the next phrase has already been stomped flat by the time you arrive.
Conversations with Stu Hamm and Mr. Drummer. Stu’s father is the author & musicologist Charles Hamm and Stu spent his day-off visiting him in Vermont. He brought a photo of the field where Stu and his brother tripped to No Pussyfooting. Apparently a ‘plane flew overhead, coinciding with the guitar divebombing at the end. And last night Mr. Drummer listened to That Which Passes. Jeff saw colours while listening and was surprised to discover they coincided with the colours of John Miller’s artwork. Jeff also found the music very dark, which he appreciated when he read the sleeve notes.
For me, the conceptual leap between Soundscape-thinking and the jam is vast. Technically, I've just dumped all my old programmes and I'm building a new set. Which is not yet constructed. Nothing like the deep end to learn swimming. Dear Diary, later you will discover the results of tonight's blasting.
"Relaxation is never accidental."
