Myles Kennedy Roars Through the Rain at Udine Castle: Year of the Tiger Live (2018)

Poba Last updated 25 September 2018

ALEŠ PODBREŽNIK

location: Udine / Castello di Udine / Italy
when: 07/21/2018

Summer is vacation season, and the lineup of open-air gigs blossoms too. Unfortunately, this July in Italy’s Friuli region has turned out pretty wet and moody. Sudden downpours, long stretches of rain, even thunderstorms. Some years are just like that. Years like 2018. If we already got soaked in Udine on July 10 at the Simple Minds gig, Simple Minds, the story repeated itself at the castle grounds of Udine Castle, where Myles Kennedy was set to play eleven days later. The famed Alter Bridge vocalist (and rhythm guitarist) and frontman of Slash feat. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators is also regarded as a very fine songwriter and poet, and he’s a seriously great guitarist too. He spent a whole nine years writing his first studio album, »Year of the Tiger«, which finally saw the light of day this March. Myles Kennedy is a huge perfectionist. He polished this album for an exceptionally long time, and it carries a story that digs into Kennedy’s childhood, when his father died. His dad passed away in 1974,

when little Myles wasn’t even five yet, and by the Chinese calendar it was the year of the tiger (hence the album title). Myles Kennedy is a huge perfectionist. He honed his solo studio debut for more than nine years, and the chosen story, or concept, was not just a unique challenge for the musician but, to a certain extent, a burden too (if only out of respect for his lost father). So the long wait for the album paid off. »Year of the Tiger« is an exceptionally polished singer-songwriter achievement. A confessional record that’s rich in ideas and layered in genre.

At 8:00 PM, French guitarist Dorian Sorriaux was supposed to take the stage as the opener. He released his EP »Hungry Ghost« this year, at the end of June, wading into singer-songwriter waters himself. Sorriaux, who is also the lead guitarist of the ever more popular Blues Pills, never made it onto the stage. Meanwhile, people were still steadily trickling into the soggy venue, some looking for shelter from the rain under a nearby roof, others sitting on chairs in front of the stage. It rained no harder than before and during the Simple Minds show, but it all apparently comes down to the band’s management. The rain stopped at 8:45, but the crew still needed a full half hour to get everything ready for the show, even though everything was already set up on stage. So we could breathe a sigh of relief. The gig wasn’t canceled, and at a quarter past nine in the evening, Myles Kennedy himself walked out with his backing band. Besides Myles, the lineup features his longtime buddy and drummer Zia Uddin and bassist Tim Tournier. Both took part in Kennedy’s current solo record, while the Uddin–Kennedy partnership goes all the way back to their high school days and The Mayfield Four.

The show we’d been sweating over for more than an hour, wondering whether it would be called off, was on. Right from the start, Myles Kennedy won us over with his incredible, wide-ranging stage charisma and his exceptionally sensual vocals, full of tenderness and simmering passion. He opened the gig with the most rocking track on the solo record, Devil on the Wall. Kennedy swapped guitars for almost every song, and the show rang out now acoustic, now electric. Among other things, the man tried his hand at a National Steel guitar, and alongside his remarkable vocal character he showed that he’s an excellent guitarist too, one who handles the crucial parts of the songs with ease, whether it’s a signature guitar solo or a vivid string of chord progressions.

During the fourth song, Haunted by Design, the crowd left their seats and headed together all the way up to the front of the stage, where the barrier stopped them, and enjoyed the show standing. The thunder rumbled for the first time too when Kennedy tackled Slash’s Starlight, from Slash’s self-titled studio debut, and he took the atmosphere up another notch right after that with the Alter Bridge hit Addicted to Pain.

»Year of the Tiger« is an exceptionally vivid and polished album, and Kennedy knows it, so the setlist was generously stocked with it. He played the bulk of its tracks. Still, a good half of the show went to covers of other artists. There’s no need to name them all, but one that really stood out was the rearranged, fully acoustic take on the Iron Maiden classic The Trooper, which Kennedy sang in a mid-to-lower register. It worked out brilliantly in its new, acoustic outfit. This excellent musician and his crew crowned that multilayered polish with Robert Johnson’s Travelling Riverside Blues, while plenty of Alter Bridge fans got their fix when he took on Watch Over You and All Ends Well in the second half of the show.

The hour-and-three-quarters-long show brimmed with vivid emotion and passion the whole way through, and the trio’s exceptional skills drove it from start to finish in a sonic wall of finely calibrated rhythmic figures. The songs from »Year of the Tiger« embody a distinctive blend of American folk, southern rock and blues, plus touches of alternative rock, and with Myles Kennedy’s remarkable and hard-to-pin-down vocal performance they glow to the fullest and deliver a feeling of unique, confessional character. Myles Kennedy didn’t just come across tonight as an exceptional vocal chameleon, but as an incredibly insightful singer-songwriter and composer who’s also a true master of the guitar. Let’s hope he stays in singer-songwriter territory in the future too, building on and nurturing the perceptive spirit of personal musical expression from his studio debut. The performance unfolded in shaky weather, with lightning constantly flashing threateningly from the surrounding clouds, yet its piercing intensity left a strong impression and stirred feelings in the crowd that kept washing over us long after the show. And that’s what counts. At every single gig. And Kennedy and his crew proved that he’s an expressively powerful, incredibly experienced and confidently sculpted musical artist who’s in full command of a performance.

author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

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