Performance #5 – 12th March 2004
-00 Ghost 27 [jam] Jam
Review by Jesse Voccia:
The music and the setting were really great, more like my living room than a nightclub. It felt like they had come over to my house to play. It was amazing, I am so glad they went through the trouble.
I will add that the guitar instrumental was incredible I hope they release it like they did for the early january show. John was playing up and down the neck with tremendous fluidity while never even approaching the “Hack” zone. He was playing his battered rosewood fingerboard strat, through large fender amp, maybe a old bandmaster or dual showman. Josh was playing a nord 2 for the synth part and a blonde Ibanez hollowbody with a bolt on neck, through a small gibson amp. It had a feeling like an early Velvet Underground song, with lots of major penatonic soloing over simple open major and minor chords. They ended with a nice feedback/reverb wash. The man is in excellent shape. It is painfully obvious that he lives and breathes guitar. It sounded like a very pleasing mesh of pale blue eyes and little wing.
The crowd was a little strange, a lot of VERY young looking girls(underage?), and a lot of 30 something dudes. As a 31 year old dude, I found it enjoyable and kind of disturbing at the same time.
I would also like to report that a guy I met at the Feb 2nd show Trey, made it to the show. All the way from St. Louis. Just for the show!!!! This guy is hard core. I felt a little sorry for him that the show was on the short side, but it isn’t John’s problem if people want to travel such a great distance to see him.
It all ended very suddenly. At least he said bye this time.
I also admit that I had the best seat in the house. My brother and I shared a ledge about 6 feet up the wall (high above everyone’s heads with a perfect view of the action) with the Most Honorable Joe and Guy from Fugazi!!!!!!!! It would be impossible to overstate the importantance of Fugazi’s music to the course of my life and to share the evening sitting between two of my heroes while watching the other one of my heroes was the high point of my concert going life so far!!! It will be very difficult to top this one for me.
They were very nice and just regular guys, and I am very proud of myself for not gushing like an idiot!!!!! It was SO hard to act cool for such a long stretch. Under NORMAL circumstances it is almost impossible for me to shut up and I am constantly getting in trouble with my big mouth. Although we talked very little(remember I was being COOL), Joe did say that John has about 50 songs that they are working on at the moment and that they are all very good. He described the actual working progress as very enjoyable and that John was going through an extremely fertile period. He talked of a typical situation in the studio when after playing only four notes of his bass line John had already come up with an amazing guitar part and they were off….. Joe was blown away by how much there was, how good it was and how fast he comes up with it.
Guy Piccioto was also a part of this conversation. This tone and content of the situation led me to believe that he is far less involved than I had initially hoped. Oh well, I can’t wait to hear this new music. I personally prefer John’s solo stuff over the band(RHCP) stuff. Flea and Chad are great but, you know…
The funniest thing about that night was that the management didn’t let anyone in until 10pm so everyone was waiting outside the club in this outdoor hallway. For about 45 mins Guy and Joe and their people stood out in the hall with us and no one seemed to recognize them. People kept walking past them with RHCP Tshirts and Hats on and some even carrying guitars for you-know-who to sign. That is what started my little descent into my ageism and generation gap trip. “Don’t these people know true Rock Gods when they see them?!?!” It’s kind of funny, in the same way that people can’t believe I grew up in Maine and I don’t like Lobster.
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