Venue: Jamski dvorec / Postojna
Concert date: October 22, 2009
Attendance: 250
Ticket price: €14
Yesterday the Postojna Blues festival opened its doors in Postojna for the sixth year running. The honor of kicking off chapter 6 of the only truly credible festival event devoted to the blues went to young American musician Tad Robinson this year. He’s a first-rate vocalist and harmonica player who likes to camp out in the calm waters of soul, though he’s often swept off in the direction of blues too. Tad Robinson is currently promoting last year’s album “A New Point Of View”, and he’s getting a hand from the excellent guitarist Alex Schultz. The opening night of the blues festival also brought keyboardist Kevin Anker, bassist Steve Gomes and drummer Robb Stupka to the Jamski dvorec stage. The backing trio kept the great-humored vocal-and-guitar duo superbly busy, and the duo won everyone over with a totally natural symbiosis of soul and blues.
Robinson’s Postojna repertoire was made up of boldly arranged songs. A run of strictly soul-oriented masterpieces was always followed by a few dangerous detours into, let’s say, basic blues forms, and of course the other way around. Robinson built a bridge of tangible mood and color, stretched wide across the entire evening, and the precondition for that was of course top-notch instrumental delivery. Tad had nothing to worry about there. His back was faithfully covered by a quartet of first-class musicians, whose strongest trump cards lay in the guitar mastery of Alex Schultz. RockLine last ran into Schultz on one of its regular visits to Bluesiana. Alex is a superb improviser, and the tone of his playing, which glides through different harmonic forms with imagination and frightening precision, is distinctly jazz-tinged. On the other side of the stage, Alex found an excellent “conversation partner” in keyboardist Kevin Anker. Those two kept thrilling us all evening with spontaneous musical communication, most of it understandably soaked in countless improvisations. Their solo exchanges stayed open-ended, always left to the inspiration and mood of the moment. And last night there was no shortage of that kind of stage sparkle.
The inventive, spontaneous stage language of musicians in the zone is without a doubt an interesting thing, but the trip down to Postojna yesterday still came with the hope of being served something more substantial, music that has less to do with a clever display of technical polish and more to do with the character of a deeply expressive message. Tad Robinson is the real material for that kind of listening treat, because yesterday we witnessed an unexpected revelation of the exceptional vocal qualities of a pale-faced fella whose soul is obviously soaked in black energy and sensuality. Tad Robinson is a master of vocal soul! In the velvetiness of his voice you can easily spot the influence of soul giant Otis Redding, and among the younger generation of soul and blues standard-bearers, Tad’s delivery comes closest to the vocals of Robert Cray. Like I said, Robinson’s voice seems tailor-made for mastering, and ultimately showing off, the basic building blocks of soul.
But Tad isn’t just a fantastic soul interpreter, the guy is also a seasoned hand with the harmonica, which of course takes him closer to the noble nature of the blues. By mixing the two, soul and blues, Robinson hit on the right combination of intensity and sensitivity that stays out of reach for most of his colleagues. The two elements complement each other wonderfully, meaning they aren’t mixed at any cost or by force, and that breathes an organic quality into an already expressive sound picture, one that opens up unexpected musical horizons. Tad’s harmonica playing is admittedly a mischievous offspring of the blues, yet his voice stays doggedly soul-oriented. So, understandably, it didn’t work out without Schultz’s help here. He poured out inexpressible blues pain through a great solo on Broken Hearted Man, which, after a series of emotional explosions, quietly faded into the mist of a personal vocal confession!
The opening act of the blues concert season in Postojna served up highs on both the emotional and the performance front. Tad Robinson convinced with a heartfelt show into which he poured his absolute maximum. Considering that soul, much like the blues, is, to put it carefully, a clinically dead genre, kept alive only by the improvised tinkering of a few obsessives with the guiding principles of the past, Robinson did an outstanding job reviving both and finally fusing them. Definitely one of the highlights of the blues festival action in Postojna in the last few years!
Photos: Mojca Perdih
Setlist
1. Hot Wheels 2. More Good Than Bad 3. Long Way Home 4. It Rained All Night 5. You’re The One 6. Broken Hearted Man 7. Welcome Home 8. Pocket Full Of Nothing 9. They Say 10. Up And Down 11. Ain’t That Lovin YOu 12. Let’s Start Again Tonight 13. Money Is The Name Of The Game 14. My Love Is Real 15. Payback
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