Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Velden Am Wörthersee / Bluesiana Rock Cafe / Austria
Concert date: December 22, 2013
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: €42.00
Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal had to step into some gigantic shoes in 2006. That’s when the man became part of the lineup of rock ‘n’ roll rascals Guns ‘N’Roses, which puts him in the league of the best guitarists on the planet! He’s still doing the job with those rock titans today. To date, Bumblefoot has released 9 studio albums and one DVD. His solo debut “The Adventures of Bumblefoot” came out in 1995, but the standout among his credits is definitely his contribution to the latest studio album by Guns ‘N’ Roses, “Chinese Democracy” (2008).
The fact that Bumblefoot could play Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” “backwards” as a kid says plenty about this musician’s guitar virtuosity. Over the years the man has grown into an all-round guitarist who handles any genre situation with ease, and he’s also a very good vocalist. Bumblefoot’s multilayered musical outlook shows in his studio albums too, which jump all over the genre map, and because of that, he’s highly respected among the “employers” who love to hire him as a producer and session musician. Plenty of music magazines put Bumblefoot on their lists of the best guitarists in the world, especially those known for their top-notch, polished technique on the six-string (guitar) fretboard.
That’s enough of an intro! This time Bluesiana is literally boiling. A name is a name. I can’t remember a crowd like this. A mob of Italians in particular had already stormed the stage of the little club and was making a proper racket in feverish anticipation. Around half past nine in the evening, Ron Thal really does step onto the stage, accompanied by drummer Dennis Leeflang. A wave of excitement breaks loose! The club is getting more and more sweltering. After a few minutes of calibration (clearly Ron Thal is his own »roadie«), the man straps on a double-neck Vigier guitar from his »DoubleBfoot« series (the upper neck is »fretless«), and he’s joined onstage by two seasoned Italian musicians: Simone Massimi on bass and Nazzareno Zacconi, who stood on the Bluesiana stage three weeks ago as the touring guitarist for Jennifer Batten, Michael Jackson’s former guitar wizard.
A spontaneous night of live music is right around the corner. Even the opening warm-up, when the band “borrowed” the Beatles classic Come Together for a sound check, hinted at an interesting and unusual turn of events, the kind you couldn’t have predicted even half a minute ahead. Right away, the fast-fingered devil on guitar showed with some five-finger tapping that he’s made of special stuff. Nazzareno Zacconi’s startled looks and bulging eyes confirmed it. He held down the rhythm backdrop on guitar for Ron throughout the show, even though Ron gave him free rein a good few times, letting the excellent Italian guitarist stretch out in some solo acrobatics too and show the crowd he’s a top-class musician.
The feeling of the show being totally fragmented and disjointed grew by the minute. Ron would launch into a recognizable riff, and as soon as the other three guys joined in, he’d stop playing and jump to another song. This story repeated itself countless times during the set, so the more demanding listeners were seriously ready to give up on how serious the guy really was. The tickets, after all, were alarmingly pricey. Still, especially in the second half, things started to make sense and hang together. Only Ron Thal can get away with that kind of theater. Because he has a big, recognizable name, and because he’s an ultra virtuoso!
The repertoire was mostly weighted toward songs from Ron’s solo catalog, all of which landed in that famous rock ‘n’ roll hanging-from-the-ceiling style, dosed with real punk “bad ass” vanity, which was proof enough of why Ron clicked with Axl in the new Guns ‘N Roses lineup. So we got Abnormal, Real, Some Other Guy, Normal, Guitar Suck, Turn Around, Simple Days, Overloaded, Guitar Still Suck, Dash, Rockstar for a Day, The Colour Of Justice, Last Time, Shadow, plus some wonderfully lucid, whacked-out covers of originals, like Henry Mancini’s The Pink Panther Theme, a hefty dose of goofing around with Wasted Years (Iron Maiden), a Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) accompanied by a pile of mistakes, or a somewhat more serious Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John). And of course Ron didn’t forget to play (quietly expected) Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix), the beloved live standard of many guitar heroes of his caliber in the amusement park of the rock ‘n’ roll universe.
The show ended up running a full two hours and twenty minutes (true, Ron absolutely, positively didn’t want to say goodbye to the crowd), and the top-class guitar virtuoso naturally spiced it up with three Guns N’ Roses songs right at the end of the set (Sweet Child O’Mine, Estranged, Don’t Cry). During one of the numbers, Ron theatrically left the stage and walked through the whole club from table to table, from bar to bar, came back to the stage a few minutes later and, theatrically on his knees, soloed through the big finale. Besides being a brilliant guitarist who developed a special guitar technique (hellishly fast), Ron Thal is also an outstanding singer. He loves to sing. Almost too much.
Either way, for a show like the one he put on in Bluesiana, which brought us to the edge of chaos, his first “employer” Axl Rose had better not find out. To some extent, Ron Thal became his own Axl Rose up there. But despite his dandyish, hooligan look, this musician is a sweetheart of a guy. You can eat out of his hand. When you chat with him after the show, he radiates incredibly positive energy, joy, mischief, curiosity and a sense of respect for everyone who came to his show in Bluesiana that night. An unforgettable spectacle of first-rate rock ‘n’ roll and an outrageous rally ride up and down the guitar (richly seasoned with a string of breakneck guitar escapades) as the big finale of a rich year of concerts that filled the famous Bluesiana Rock Cafe in 2013. Let’s hope this show is also a nice send-off into a new rich harvest of gigs we’re looking forward to next year, in this dear club of ours on the other side of the Alps.
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