Venue: Bluesiana Rock Cafe / Velden am Woerthersee / Austria
Concert date: 05.04.2012
Attendance: 160
Ticket price: 32,00€ / 36,00€
It hadn’t even been a year, and the king of fusion blues, Philip Sayce, was back at the temple of blues in our neighbor to the north. No way were we going to miss another chance to see the guitar master live.
Just over two weeks after our last visit, we were back at Bluesiana. Most of the Kotzen pictures had been swapped out for shots of Philip Sayce. The staff’s homey warmth hadn’t changed a bit, though. The club slowly filled up, and after the obligatory beer we staked out our spots in the front rows by the stage.
Philip Sayce has been a regular at Bluesiana for quite a few years now. He’s been strumming guitar strings since early childhood, drawing his inspiration mainly from Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. By 15 he was already a well-known face on the Toronto club scene, and when the legendary Jeff Healey invited him to play together, his career was sealed. After three years on the road with Healey, Philip decided to go his own way. So far he has put out 4 solo albums, the latest, titled Steamroller, in February 2012. Its release was the reason for the European tour and the return to Bluesiana.
Around half past nine in the evening, the wonder boy finally showed up, with a bassist and a drummer in tow. No lengthy warm-up chatter: he launched straight into a song from the new CD, Rhythm and truth. Philip showed from the get-go that this gig would again be packed with energy. By the second song he was already sweating from every pore. His non-stop roaming around the stage made photography seriously hard for us, but it also charged up the whole crowd and got everybody moving.
After Save me from myself he kept going with a run of songs from the excellent new CD, which he himself calls proof of his musical maturity. The rhythms on the new record are rougher, the guitar tone is more distorted, and his voice is more muddied by effects, but live it all melts into a gorgeous blend of floating sounds that sends every last brain cell off on a long musical journey. Frequent improvised instrumental passages only deepened the experience. You’ve got no choice but to melt into the crowd and move, while watching, spellbound, Sayce’s sudden hand and finger movements over a battered guitar with only traces of lacquer and paint left on it. His signature big sweeping arm moves and quick twitches really do put you under a spell, and Philip himself is just as entranced by his own playing. At one point his right hand went up too high, snagged on his chain of white plastic beads and snapped it, so the beads instantly rained down on the Bluesiana stage like tiny white snowflakes. Philip didn’t get rattled, though. He just kept playing, while the folks in the front row stretched toward the stage to grab a bead or two for themselves.
This time Philip didn’t pull as many playing tricks as the year before, but the show was no less a feast for the eyes and ears. He also played a song by his great idol Jeff Healey, As the years go passing by. Midway through, he strolled off the stage into the crowd and showed off his guitar chops to the people in the back rows too. He played King of New Mexico from the album Ruby electric and 2 great tracks (Slip away and Cinnamon girl) from Peace machine, and then the sweat-soaked musicians left the stage. The crowd’s loud cheering soon called them back. Philip thanked the wonderful audience and the club’s owner, Gudrun Kofler, for the privilege of playing in such a great space, and said he wanted to sing us something special for the Easter weekend. They played a soulful Were you there (when they crucified my Lord), thanked everyone once more and said their final goodbye. Well, not quite final: Philip headed straight to the merch table, where he happily signed CDs and flyers and posed for photographers.
Gorgeous energy, a great gig, and plenty of good music. You could say Sayce has truly matured, both musically and on stage. He has total command of his instrument, his vocals and his stage show. It was a bit of a surprise that he skipped the title track of the new CD, Steamroller, even though it was on the setlist, but he surely had his reasons. Either way, this is a concert you absolutely have to put in your calendar for next year.
Setlist
1. Rhythm and truth
2. Save me from myself
3. Stung by a woman
4. Marigold
5. Beautiful
6. A mystic
7. Aberystwyth
8. Black train
9. You can run but you can’t hide
10 . Holding on
11. As the years go passing by
12. King of New Mexico
13. Slip away
14. Cinnamon girl
—encore—
15. Were you there
Photo Gallery
