HW: Huw Rejoins

Jon Jarrett jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK
Sat Oct 13 12:44:06 EDT 2001


On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, iain ferguson wrote:

> last couple of times I've seen Huw he's been awful. The albums where
> he was under control "live 79, levitation and Sonic attack" are 20
> years old now..After those albums he tuned the band into some kind of
> heavy metal parody
>
> Can he still play in tune ?  has anyone seen any of his solo concerts
> or with his band ? what did it sound like ?
>
> Based on what I heard at Brixton and Croydon ( on video ) he has not
> left me with any confidence that he can play like he used to. Looking
> forward to good reports from the Canterbury gig so that these words
> will return to haunt me for eternity, And that what i've heard so far
> has just been a blip.

        I saw him as acoustic support at the Astoria gig and with the band
at Canterbury, and of course just now at the RFH. Before that I saw him at
the Blackheath gig in 1997, and then I'd have agreed with every word you
said. I couldn't see the point of his LLB set, nothing there bar a nice
tune or two and an insistence on playing `Hurry on Sundown' twice because
the crowd and actually made some noise about that. e was good with the
Hawks themselves for the encore but then it was the first time Ron had
played bass with them live and Jerry was also settling into it as a
regular, so utter chaos was what we got, one of those fantastic gigs where
the Hawks somehow pull it all together and you come out on a massive high
from the sheer spontaneity of it. So he was OK, but not the legend, as it
were. And I thought nothing of his acoustic performance.

        So, for the Hawkestra gig I missed his solo acoustic performance
because I thought it would be less fun than another pint would. This may
have been a mistake. Although given his performance with the main band
I'm not too sure about that. But at the Astoria he was spell-binding. I'm
still not sure how he did it. One man with a semi-acoustic guitar and an
almost unintelligible patter started with a hall of randoms chatting to
each other and inside twenty minutes had the whole audience sitting
completely still in awe. He was *fantastic*. Wandering in and out of
things I knew and into his own songs, fantastic technique and marvellously
sensitive playing; not perfect but completely at ease with its defects,
you know what I mean. And at Canterbury I was forced to acclaim him space
guitarist of the new millennium because of the eerie noises he was linking
his really pretty good solos with. So I'd say he can play all right still.

        I wish I could use the RFH gig as evidence in favour too, but I
could only hear him at times and even during some of those he appeared to
have given up trying, presumably because of not being audible. What I
heard was mostly OK with one flash of brilliance. He's not quite reliable,
I think, mood affects him more than it does the others, but when on form
he;s still got it all right. IMO. Yours,
                                         Jon

ObCD: Gong - _02I_
--
           Jon Jarrett                     "Two men say they're Jesus,
          (01223 514989)                   One of 'em must be wrong..."
   jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk              (Mark Knopfler)



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