Venue: Postojna Blues Festival, Slovenia
Concert date: 26.05.2006
Attendance: 700
Ticket price: 3.490,00 SIT
This condensed report is part of the longer write-up that is otherwise included in the Postojna Blues Festival 2006 piece, which you can read in full here. It’s posted separately here to underline that this was the performance of one of those bands with legendary status in Europe and North America, who long ago earned their reputation there as respected and instrumental in shaping the many faces of the phenomenon called rock music. Given that Slovenes simply don’t have much real rock awareness, Ten Years After playing here is a hugely important event for us and an honor of a special kind.
Ten Years After are the ones, yes, exactly those, who showed up as “white blues” was slowly fading out on British soil in the second half of the sixties. The band stretched the notion by popularizing it, or rather enriching it, with a heavy riff-driven rock attitude. In short, a band that was definitely uncovering uncharted spheres of rock music and put “blues rock” back in front of the masses. Alvin Lee is now the past for Ten Years After. That doesn’t mean Ten Years After lost the renown they built up over the years with this great guitarist, who left such a fateful mark on the sound and development of Ten Years After. Ten Years After miraculously came back from the dead in 2002, when they were joined by the “monster guitarist,” as legendary bassist Leo Lyons likes to introduce him, Joe Gooch. Gooch is about half the age of his three companions, who are all slowly creeping past sixty. Fate wanted Ten Years After to return. Gooch managed not only to fill Alvin Lee’s big shoes but also to bring in renewal and, with innovative changes, keep the band developing “in its old age.” He simply doesn’t copy Alvin, not in the vocals and not by trying to play identical replicas of his unforgettable solos. Gooch is his own guitarist, and the signature Ten Years After musical formula suits him perfectly. The band’s meeting with Gooch was really a meeting of key and lock. Ten Years After could carry on where they’d left off with Alvin Lee while evolving forward at the same time. The excellent studio album “Now” proves it, and the double live album “Roadworks,” released last year, will silence the doubting Thomases, who can analyze the differences between Alvin and Joe there to their heart’s content. Personally, by the end that comparison always cancelled itself out on both sides of the equation.
Anyway, when the guys walked onto the stage, the crowd jumped to its feet and gave them a thunderous welcome. People finally started gathering in the space between the seats and the stage, which had been meant for exactly that long before. The famous galloping rhythm? Working On The Road, and it was on! The sight was incredibly encouraging. The legends were visibly in a playful mood. Leo Lyons especially, where does this man find so much positive willpower and energy? He was like in a trance throughout the whole show, tearing at his bass strings with total commitment and going wild like Ten Years After were just heading out on their first concert tour ever, not one of the many they now handle on pure routine. Lyons was wound up like crazy, proof of how hungry the guys were for a real, steady lineup and an end to the agony of the stalemate they’d been pushed into by having no replacement for Alvin Lee until 2002.
Gooch fascinated with his enormous confidence, precision and composure. And there isn’t a shred of rock-star posturing in his playing, which, given his esteemed reputation, the guys could have ended up indulging in after all, though that would have been off-putting and tasteless! This is an explosive, dynamic guitar wizard who was born for his role. With King Of The Blues the band poured oil on the fire. Hear Me Calling is a classic to which Joe added a never-before-heard line, “Then I’ll be leaving this town,” in the outro, while Chick Churchill made himself noticed with an organ solo that nicely spiced up the song. The guys fired off the well-known cheeky motif of Good Morning Little School Girl from “Ssssh” (1969), a fixture of their iron repertoire. An excellent “slow blues” adventure with Angry Words followed. It’s a cover whose original performer I unfortunately don’t know. After it they hit full throttle again with the bouncy, “torpedoed rock riff” song Big Black 45, which is a song by the band Kick, in which Gooch played before joining Ten Years After. The Hobbit came next, somewhat shortened compared to the seventies versions. This is where Ric Lee got his good seven minutes and the well-known drum solo spot, in which he raised a proper racket. Maybe Ric isn’t quite the right drummer for a solo spot as far as his repertoire goes, because it isn’t so special and sky-screamingly distinctive that it could impress on any deeper level, although the man is definitely better today than ever. But The Hobbit has become legendary over the years, and it also has to be on the set list for Ric’s own sake. And to keep the show from losing its dynamic, Love Like A Man took care of that next, with its well-known evergreen main guitar motif. Incredibly faithful to the original, but Gooch flipped the solo his own way. His own way, yet splendidly within the range that Ten Years After possess, heartfelt, passionate and all in. That song was a sign that the concert was building up. After it came the fantastic I’d Love To Change The World, a classic “rock”-oriented song with excellent “soloing” by Joe Gooch through the instrumental middle section. The song has become something special in general, since today’s Ten Years After play it with Gooch starting the first part on acoustic guitar, over which he dictates a solid rhythm. It’s a song where the atmosphere keeps growing, building from round to round, and in the end it finishes, or rather settles down, in its outro quite innocently. The feelings it stirred in me brought Stairway To Heaven (Led Zeppelin) to mind, just the feelings. Another song from the current studio album (“Now”, 2004) followed, Time To Kill, and after it the peak of the evening with I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes, the longest of the night, with a “rock riff” medley in its second half, during which the audience’s heads were spinning around their axes even more unstoppably. That’s when Chick Churchill lit up a well-deserved “smoke” and “strolled” up and down the stage while waiting for Lyons and Gooch to finish jamming themselves out. To the medley of classic “rock riffs” they’ve newly added Smoke On The Water. Either way, it was a signal for the closing party. We’re talking about their Woodstock smash I’m Going Home, of course! The partying just wouldn’t end. The band was enjoying itself enormously on stage. 00:20, done! People demand more! Naturally the legends come back and “set it ablaze” with full force again, this time right in the encore with the “Now” (2004) song Reasons Why, followed by one more move of the same kind, this time a staple of their shows, Choo Choo Mamma! In two hours the merrymaking with Ten Years After was over.
They simply seem indestructible. Even after four decades. All the classics played brilliantly with just the right amount of enthusiasm, which has by no means faded. Ten Years After are living legends, damn alive. Gooch, a technically top-notch guitarist, fascinated with his damn speed, which was downright devastatingly supersonic, and with his devotion to the band’s great legacy. Vocally he was brilliant, with just the right note that the blues rock approach demands. He can explode convincingly raw or confidently lead the calmer passages with a sophisticated feel. A musician armed with the rare ability to sing decisively and effectively while at the same time rubbing the strings as if in a trance. Ten Years After showed themselves to the audience in an exceptionally decent light, or rather the light of true gentlemanliness, which the British have mastered, of course. After the show they turned up at the stand where their merchandise was being sold. They signed autographs there. Joe, Leo and Ric were chatty and in great spirits, while the visibly worn-out Chick, thanks to some deeper flirting with alcoholic substances, paid attention mostly to representatives of the fairer sex.
Setlist
1. Working On The Road
2. King Of The Blues
3. Hear Me Calling
4. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
5. Angry Words
6. Big Black 45
7. The Hobbit
8. Love Like A Man
9. I’d Love To Change The World
10. Time To Kill
11. I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes
12. I’m Going Home
—-encore—-
13. Reasons Why
14. Choo Choo Mamma
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