Postojna Blues Festival 2006

Bluesback, a band whose beginnings go back to 1995, proved they’re a four-piece that definitely isn’t one of those bands who’ve barely learned to walk musically. The lineup of Peter Orlič (vocals, guitar), Marko Stropnik (guitar, vocals), Willy DeMattia (bass) and Mitja Stropnik (drums) convinced me more than once that we Slovenes can also muster some seriously enviable “blues rock” chugging. In one hour the guys ran through their studio album, which hasn’t been officially released yet, as they’re still looking for a label to back them (an old story in a land without blues rock culture called the Republic of Slovenia). In a set that lasted a good hour, the guys convincingly dipped into covers of foreign bands as well as zealously presenting their own material. They played extremely convincingly, shot a healthy dose of blues energy into the crowd and showed they’re an experienced, well-oiled machine as far as tightness and technical chops go. In short, Bluesback came in with a solid, fired-up approach and made the most of their time to introduce themselves. If Bluesback stop anywhere near your home, don’t miss their show. In short: enviable, and let’s hope they manage to climb higher!

 

Then came Paul Lamb And King Snakes. At first only King Snakes appeared on stage, in a lineup of Chad Strentz (vocals, rhythm guitar), Raul de Pedro Marinero (rhythm and lead guitar), who with his cropped short hair with blond streaks and stocky build reminded me at first glance of Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, then Rod Demick (bass) and Sonny Bellow (drums). King Snakes radiated incredible confidence, and at first I didn’t even realize anything was missing, that what they were actually missing was their leader, the steam engine, the outstanding harmonica acrobat Paul Lamb. King Snakes were already deep into their “rhythm’n’blues” groove when suddenly the “Valentino dandy” of Al Capone’s days, Paul Lamb, appeared on stage. Of course he was already merrily wailing away on his harps with everything he had. Paul Lamb is literally a legend, going by what he’s achieved. And this concert was an extraordinary treat, because seeing solo excursions on the harmonica, and on top of that at the center of the stage action under the blues baton, is really a rarity on planet Earth. This is a completely unique approach, one that took a lot of effort and extremely strong willpower to earn recognition in the blues world, or more precisely in modern world-class blues. In a set an hour and a half long, Lamb got the audience well and truly on their feet. Through witty solo spots he strung together some astonishing harp improvisations and threw himself fully into his role. For a rough comparison I can say that what Ian Anderson is to Jethro Tull, Paul Lamb is to King Snakes. Lamb rolled around on the floor, and eventually marched down off the stage into the crowd and strolled from row to row, firing up the audience,  who diligently swayed along (on their feet!). Among King Snakes, the excellent vocalist Chad Strenz stood out in particular; alongside Lamb’s harp, he brought a real magnet to the repertoire that Paul Lamb & King Snakes were burning through, with his powerful, raw, almost “black” voice. In short, we witnessed an unforgettable blues lesson, delivered on stage by an unusual instrumental lineup that radiated top-notch stage tightness and working chemistry. In short, Pauč Lamb and King Snakes completely enchanted everyone there and left an extraordinary impression, reaped in the form of brilliant applause and approval from the audience at the end of the set, as the crowd demanded more, but unfortunately there was no time for anything extra.

MICHAEL BURKS:
The billed main act of the evening, Michael Burks, is a gentleman who carries an exceptional natural talent for blues interpretation. Completely natural, with no “detours left and right”, totally honest and straight through the most authentic language of the soul. Burks definitely draws from black Afro traditional blues, true to the roots, with a strong touch of gospel soul. Michael came on intensely. He barely cared about the audience. He just showed up, strapped on his red Gibson Flyin’ V and sailed off into his blues world. Keeping him company on stage were Jerome Ray Louden, a drummer with an incredibly precise and powerful hit, bassist John Davies and Hammond organ player Wayne Arland Sharp. Michael is capable of exceptional control and exceptional immersion, and his guitar “pull-offs” and “licks” sent waves of goosebumps down the spine without reservation all through the concert, as did the carefully chosen punchy riffs, backed up by the energetic explosiveness of a tight rhythm section. In short, this was a band that clearly can’t fake it, and that was really the case this time too. Over his roughly 2-hour set, Burks simply couldn’t miss on anything. Midway through the show Michael said that tonight’s get-together with the audience at the festival in Postojna was the only concert appearance in Europe this year for him and his band (in June they already have a tour of the USA ahead of them). Burks is magnetically charming, he simply pulls you in. Just watching how soulfully he throws himself into his performance. In one of the breaks between songs, Wayne introduced him as the man who received the following flattering honors in the USA for his musical contribution  in 2004: “Ladies and gentleman! Please welcome contemporary album of the year (for the album “I Smell Smoke”), contemporary song of the year (for the song I Smell Smoke), guitar player of the year (guitarist of the year 2004) and Living Blues magazine guitarist of the year 2004 (he received the award from the music magazine in question for 2004) winner, Mr. Michael Burks.” Burks was in the right “feeling” the whole time and, with incredible ease, brought different moods to life. A real devilish “rhythm’n’blues” turned in the next number into an erotic waltz of weeping, bending strings and noble twang, coming from superbly constructed solos, from under Michael’s magical fingers made for exactly this. It’s actually interesting how an approach that seems completely simple and routinely predictable, a seemingly familiar musical equation with always the same result, can conjure up a deceptive feeling. Burks is simply, in what he is, such a special guitarist that even in a genre niche gone stiff with age, he still finds room for himself with something new. The band drove their two-hour set home in top form. They especially shone in long passages, spiced with Michael’s primal soloing, which a few times also turned into brief crossfire between Michael’s guitar wizardry and Wayne’s Hammond solo bursts. In short, a brilliance that must have pleased even the most picky and spoiled gourmet musical ears. With his simple approach but exceptional depth, which he simply carries inside him and which he showed with an incredible sensuality all his own, Burks definitely, absolutely justified his reputation as the number one favorite of the first day of the Postojna Blues Festival.

The next day, 27.05.2006 to be exact, there were incomparably more visitors, which was a sign of merry revelry in front of the festival stage. Ten Years After are apparently known and appreciated well enough by Slovenes after all.

 

Manny Wood, Woody Mann, Moody Wann, Wanny Mood,… should we go with the voice of the people or half of it? In short, there are a huge number of fitting combinations, as many as the number of different musical genres this guy fuses together! Out of that only one single thing emerges as recognizable, just like the name Woody Mann is also one and only. Three days ago he played in our very own Celje as part of his European tour! Of course we’re talking about a top-class, highly profiled musician, a renowned guitar teacher, who needs nothing but a guitar in his hands to express himself. He possesses exceptional control of “finger picking”, coming from under the magical pads of his fingertips. Between 20:00 and 21:00 on the second day, Woody Man conjured up a true solo experience, in the literal sense. A National Steel and a classic folk guitar were enough for the magic. Add to that a gentle, deeply intoned voice from a charming gentleman and the perfect fantasy of the authentic natural sound of acoustic twanging from his two “plunkers”. Among the tunes he included a cover of his idol Son House, as he himself announced in an intro before launching into the song. A real relaxation massage for the ears, and it was an incredible pleasure to admire Woody, who masterfully filled the sonic space with top-notch technique that he commands and holds in his pinky. His hour-long set passed in a blink, and it’s downright enviable to watch a textbook case of a musician who plays purely for his own enjoyment and still managed to reach the recognition of the entire music world. Let me also mention that Woody Mann’s guitar workshop, organized a few days before the festival in Postojna, was packed to the last corner, which bodes well for the coming generation of Slovenian guitarists. In short, Woody Mann’s set was an unforgettable journey through a lovely, whisperingly fragile interweaving of harmonious notes from an exceptional fusion of blues, country-folk and ragtime. Magic that only Woody knows.

 

9 p.m., and right on the dot, to the second, Keith Thompson appears on stage with his associates, collectively known as Keith Thompson’s Strange Brew. Keith Thompson is a professional musician with years of concert experience and a hotly sought-after session player. Among others, he has performed and recorded with big names such as: the band Spooky Tooth, Steve Winwood (Traffic, The Spencer Davis Group), Ruby Turner, former Motorhead guitarist Wurzel, Dave Markee and Henry Spinetti (Eric Clapton Band and Tina Turner), and also Greg Ridley of Humble Pie and Luther Grosvenor (Mott The Hoople). In 2004 he founded Keith Thompson’s Strange Brew, and so they accompanied him at the Postojna festival too: members of Climax Blues Band, bassist Neil Simpson (who once also worked with “the old grumpy blues rascal” John Mayall, Ruby Turner and Roy Wood) and drummer Roy Adams (who worked with Ruby Turner, Roy Wood and was a member of the Steve Gibbons Band). And the remaining quarter of the band is actually its female member. This is the highly renowned name among saxophonists Patsy Gamble, who is also a member of one of the best British horn sections, The Little Big Horns. This musician has in the past also recorded with Mick Jagger (the album “Goddess In The Doorway”) and plays with Steve Winwood, Eddie Martin and Ruby Turner. In short, the “magic potion” hit the stage convincingly and was “slicked up” to the very end in the performance. Keith Thompson’s Strange Brew announced that Ten Years After would have to try damn hard to top them in their own set as the billed “headliners” of the day. With perfect tightness they rolled out polished rhythm’n’blues riffs that, thanks to the flawlessness of the rhythm section, dangerously and concretely kept flirting with pure funk elements, which meant the band really served up first-class cues for going wild, which the Slovenes unfortunately didn’t know how or didn’t want to take advantage of. They kept sitting zealously on their little stools or watching the stage lazily from a safe distance with beers in hand. Still, the show was at least decently filled with people, considering the sadly dismal response of the previous day. Keith, who with his hairdo briefly reminded me of Joe Cocker, led the gang through compact songs soaked with adrenaline, while the erotic allure, the cherry on top, was brought by the sound of Patsy’s alto sax. Of course top-notch solo improvisations were not left out in the tunes, where the musicians radiated especially exceptional tightness as they accompanied the soloists, be it Keith or Patsy, but above all it was the solo spot by the superb bassist Neil Simpson that took your breath away and thoroughly woke up the “dozing” audience. Keith Thompson’s Strange Brew mostly presented their new studio album “Independance” (2006). In a one-hour set they convinced the onlookers so much that the crowd demanded an encore at the end. The band came back, having been given the green light that there was enough time for one more song. It was a cover of Al Green’s Take Me To The River, during which the crowd finally came alive. In short, real “rock blues”, easy to listen to, with an explosive energy flux that irresistibly sucks you in. No hesitating and no wobbling. Downright perfect and flawless, with an all-or-nothing approach.

 

TEN YEARS AFTER:
At 22:30 the legends Ten Years After took the stage. Next year they’ll celebrate their 40th birthday. Crazy! I never dared dream I’d get to see them in Slovenia. You know what our rock culture is like. More of a so-so thing. Want an explanation? Nothing easier. On the very same day that the mighty tones of legendary Balkan music giants were resounding unstoppably across Slovenia, namely Miša Kovač at Kong, Željko Joksimović at Ljubljana’s Križanke and Zdravko Čolić in Celje, who will again be echoing loudly through mass media assaults, a small crowd of around 700 people found themselves face to face with the pioneers of prog rock blues, in a completely different, green setting, far away from the concrete, the bloated glitz and the plasticky, robotic shallowness of today’s mercilessly impregnated yuppiedom.

Ten Years After are exactly the ones, yes, precisely the ones, who appeared during the slow decline of “white blues” in Great Britain in the second half of the sixties. The band stretched that notion by popularizing and enriching it at the time with a heavy riffing rock stance; in short, a band that definitely uncovered undiscovered spheres of rock music and brought “blues rock” back into the focus of the masses. Alvin Lee is the past for Ten Years After today. That doesn’t mean Ten Years After lost the renown they earned over the years with this great guitarist, who so fatefully marked the expression 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 leaning past sixty. Fate wanted Ten Years After to return. Gooch managed not only to fill Alvin Lee’s big shoes, but to bring renewal and, with innovative changes, push the band to keep developing “in its old age”. He simply doesn’t copy Alvin, neither in the vocals nor by trying to play identical replicas of his unforgettable solos. Gooch is his own guitarist, and at the same time the endemic musical formula of Ten Years After 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 had left off with Alvin Lee, while also moving forward evolutionarily. The excellent studio album “Now” certainly proves it, and the doubting Thomases will be soothed by the double live album “Roadworks”, released last year, on which they can analyze the differences between Alvin and Joe to their heart’s content. Personally, in the end that comparison always canceled itself out on both sides of the equation for me.

Anyway, when the men appeared on stage, the audience jumped to their feet and gave them a thunderous welcome. People finally started gathering in the space between the chairs and the stage, which had been meant for that long before. The familiar galloping rhythm? Working On The Road and it was on! The view was extremely encouraging. The legends were visibly playful. Especially Leo Lyons, where does this man find so much positive will and energy. Throughout the whole concert he was like in a trance, eagerly tearing at his bass strings and going wild with a vengeance, as if Ten Years After were heading out on their very first concert tour of their career and not one of the many they now handle routinely. Lyons was wound up like crazy, which showed how hungry the guys were for a solid, steady lineup and for an end to the agony of the stalemate they’d been pushed into by the fact that until 2002 they were without a replacement for Alvin Lee.

Gooch fascinated with exceptional self-confidence, correctness and assurance. At the same time, his playing doesn’t contain a shred of the starry airs that, given his esteemed reputation, he could even have gotten away with among the guys, though that would have been off-putting and tasteless! He’s an explosive and 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, in the outro, a never-before-heard line, “Then I’ll be leaving this town”, while Chick Churchill drew attention to himself with an organ solo that nicely spiced up the song. The guys fired off the familiar cheeky motif of the song that’s part of their ironclad repertoire, Good Morning Little School Girl from the album “Ssssh” (1969). An excellent “slow blues” adventure with Angry Words followed. It’s a cover whose original artist I unfortunately don’t know. After it they hit full throttle again with the bouncy, “torpedoed rock riff” song Big Black 45, a song by the band Kick, in which Gooch played before joining Ten Years After. Next came a somewhat trimmed-down The Hobbit, compared to the seventies versions. This is where Ric Lee got to his good seven minutes and well-known drum solo, in which he made a real racket. Maybe Ric by his repertoire isn’t exactly the right drummer for a solo spot, because his repertoire isn’t so special and sky-screamingly distinctive that it could impress you 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 must not be missing from the setlist for Ric’s own sake. Anyway, to keep the concert from losing its dynamics, the next song, Love Like A Man with its well-known evergreen main guitar motif, took care of that. Incredibly faithful to the original, but Gooch flipped the solo his own way. His own way but splendid within the range that Ten Years After possess, soulful, passionate and with a full approach. That song was a sign that the concert was building up. After it came a 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 also became special in general, since today’s Ten Years After play it so that Gooch starts the first part on acoustic guitar, with which he dictates a solid rhythm. It’s a song where the atmosphere keeps growing, building from round to round and in the end finishes, or rather calms down, in its outro quite innocently. The feelings called Stairway To Heaven (Led Zeppelin) to my mind, only the feelings. Again came a song from the current studio album (“Now”, 2004), Time To Kill, and after it the peak of the evening with I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes, which was the longest of the night, with a “rock riff” medley in its second part, during which the audience’s heads were spinning unstoppably around their axes. That’s when Chick Churchill lit his well-earned “fag” and “strolled” up and down the stage while waiting for Lyons and Gooch to wind down. To the medley of classic “rock riffs” they’ve now added Smoke On The Water. But that was definitely a sign of the closing party. I’m talking, of course, about their Woodstock hit I’m Going Home! The revelry just wouldn’t end. The band was enjoying themselves incredibly on stage. 00:20, the end! People demand more! Of course 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 that 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 hasn’t faded at all. 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 shone, with the right note that a blues rock approach demands. He can convincingly explode raw, or lead calmer passages with a sophisticated, confident feel. So a musician armed with the rarity of being able to sing decisively and effectively while at the same time rubbing the strings as if in a trance.

Ten Years After showed themselves in an exceptionally decent light. After the show they appeared at the stand where their merch was sold. There they signed autographs. Joe, Leo and Ric were talkative and in great spirits, while Chick, visibly worn out from a deeper flirtation with alcoholic substances, paid attention mostly to the representatives of the fairer sex.

The Postojna Blues Festival was a success. The organization was flawless. The fantastic setting, nature, certainly contributed hugely to that. The low turnout somewhat spoiled the flawlessness of the event. On the second day the number was at least in the range of an average turnout, but the security guys from G7 are another matter, who miraculously woke up during the festival and let the photographers into the area set up for them below the stage only after one of the photographers intervened. Where was the organizer at that point, to step in? In short, something that is an established routine fixture elsewhere in the world still gives us headaches in Slovenia. And this time G7 literally hindered accredited journalists in their work. Knowingly or unknowingly. The attitude of the security service is also simply part of our “rock” culture, which is at a lowly level. Whatever. The overall grade is a five with a little black dot, and it won’t be hard to draw the line with the conclusion that we’ll see each other again at the venue by Postojna Cave next year.