Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Bluesiana / Velden am Woerthersee / Austria
Concert date: 07.12.2010
Attendance: 70
There’s no room for joking around when a new phalanx of world-class aces rolls into Bluesiana! Here’s the new “super quartet”, which (half-jokingly) gives itself a telling name with the coined acronym I.M.F.s. The guys gladly “decode” that acronym for all the curious as (the) “International Mother Fuckers”. But these are top-notch musicians, not exactly “motherfuckers”. They are Stevie Salas on guitar, Bernard Fowler on vocals, Dave Abruzzese on drums and Jara Harris on bass guitar.
So who’s who, that sparks fly wherever they show up? Stevie Salas is a man who ranks high on the lists of the world’s best guitarists. Especially when you’re looking for the best funk blues guitarists. Names like Mick Jagger, Buddy Miles, Rod Stewart, Steve Vai, Zakk Wilde, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Duran Duran, Terence Trent d’Arby, Jordin Sparks,…The promising young Salas was first introduced to the world, fittingly enough, by none other than Joe Satriani, when Stevie Salas opened shows on Satriani’s “Flying In A Blue Dream” tour in 1987. Salas had just put out his first solo studio album “Colorcode” back then. The list of eminent musicians Salas has worked with over his career, then, can’t be counted on the fingers of four limbs, the standard issue on a human body.
Bernard Fowler is best known as the longtime backing vocalist, both in the studio and on tour, of those prehistoric rock n’ roll amphibians The Rolling Stones. In the past, Fowler has worked with acts such as Ryuchi Sakamoto, Gill Scott-Heron, Sly & Robbie, Material, Bootsy Collins, Duran Duran, Herb Alpert, Paul Carrack, Yoko Ono, Living Colour, Herbie Hancock, and the list is far from over.
As a member of Pearl Jam, Dave Abruzzese recorded the first three studio albums, which put him, with “Ten”, “Vitalogy” and “Vs.”, right in the middle of the big boom of the “grunge” movement in the first half of the nineties. Even Axl Rose himself was interested in him when he was looking for the right drummer for the album “Chinese Democracy”. There are recordings of studio jam sessions of the Guns’ N’ Roses singer hanging out with Dave Abruzzese.
Salas, Fowler and Abruzzese are inseparable friends going back to the nineties, when they played together in the band Nickelbag. Add a Slapback bassist by the name of Jara Harris to this trio in the new millennium and the I.M.F.s are born. Worth mentioning that in the first half of this year, none other than T.M. Stevens held down the bass spot on stage. Even though Salas and Fowler had visited Bluesiana several times before, this show, after the visit on 17.09.2009, was the second for the I.M.F.s.
So the close of this year’s (always exceptional) concert lineup at the charming club Bluesiana fell perfectly to the hot funk blues jam outfit I.M.F.s! With all the ice, snow, rain and, on top of that, nasty thick fog, there’s nothing better than having your heart thaw and a smile drawn on your lips by a spontaneous jam that switches your brain off, co-created by four absolute professionals who have experienced everything there is to experience in the world of music. They’ve stood on the biggest stages in the world, in front of the biggest crowds possible. So they know all the stories, all the tricks. Which means no hiding places.
And yet even such high and esteemed names in music like to remember where they started. That’s why the club scene feels so much like home to them, a pleasant experience where their substance and the character of their one-of-a-kind musical talents shine in a completely different light. And that’s the most appealing part of visiting any such concert setting.
Ten past ten at night, they’re on stage! Around 70 people, maybe 80. Nicely full, just right, you’d say. No complaints. The warmth, kinetics and glow, fueled by power, know-how, charisma, tremendous self-confidence and plenty of miles on the clock, effortlessly win over fans of this kind of music in an instant once you find yourself eye to eye and ear to ear with them down in front of the stage. The band opens the show with Bring It Easy, which presents Salas’s latest studio venture, “Set It On Blast” (2009). The quartet instantly bets everything on furiously white-hot funk voltage. Salas rumbles through a wound-up guitar phrase, Fowler conjures magic with his velvety vocal presence, and the rhythm section sets Bluesiana off on a solid, relentless “funk rally”. The more you give in to it, the more it gets to you and the sweeter it seduces you. Better to say it leads you. This time Salas carefully dialed in his volume, tailored to the club conditions of little Bluesiana. Last year’s visit won’t be easy to forget, mostly because of the decidedly too-loud guitar. This time the guys struck an excellent balance and Bernard Fowler was clearly and distinctly audible the whole way through.
As quietly expected, the guys also played a few Nickelbag songs, like Dope Fiend, Too Many Mountains and I Will. Compared to the last show, you could feel even more spontaneity this time, even more looseness, even more accessibility and fun-loving showmanship. Stevie Salas dedicated Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing to club owner Gudrun Kofler, while Fowler stressed in one of the breaks that the Bluesiana club is his second home. The band lifted the ever-prudent and reserved Austrians onto its wings, and soon the club’s air was thick with the steam of untamed funk energy. This emotion-soaked, charged erogenous voltage, a one-of-a-kind blend of funky driving rush woven together with blues melancholy and rock burn, created a unique springboard in the room for conjuring the magic of the singular world this quartet is capable of producing. This time the guys seemed even more connected, tight and coherent than a good year ago. Jara Harris also got more room for his “slap” escapades, and proved with what he showed that he’s a fully equal replacement for T.M. Stevens.
Songs like Turnin The Other Way, or the especially soulful I Don’t Know Why I Love You (the latter played in the encore), were special moments of the show, as Fowler’s subtle side as a vocalist sparked especially intensely in them, along with his power of convincingly stringing together a whole range of moods. An avalanche of emotions, especially pain and sorrow, simply flooded the club in those moments. Of course the flirty Apple Jack, Sweet Thang and The Groove Line in the second half set off the quartet’s devilishly potent dance, where the extraordinary power of sensing each other among the musicians really showed. No special doctrine, just following primal instincts.
An hour and 40 minutes, encore included, of creating the singular, unique stage essence that embodies this quartet brought one of the most magnificent moments of this concert year to Bluesiana at the end of the year. Just by showing up, the I.M.F.s prove how simple things can be if you know how, and dare, to let yourself be led by a spontaneous switch-off of the mind. The wailing guitar strings of the elusive funk healer Salas, the unbreakable chemical bond of the signature rhythm duo Abruzzese/Harris and of course the oddball Bernard Fowler at the center of it all can’t and don’t know how to hide. They’re pros and they’re enjoyers. They came to the club with great pleasure and great joy to deliver their musical magic. And the crowd? After two encores it just wouldn’t stop applauding. It was in a trance. Under the hypnosis of the unique reacting and interplay of musicians who were made to deliver, and to selflessly share as one unit, the gorgeous energy of potent funk, filled with the babbling blues pain of unmanageable longing. It was once again that unique, hard-to-describe moment in which the magic of music can give you the most. All it takes is a spontaneous switch-off of thought. Something the quartet, with routine and enormous mileage, conjured up several times during the show, extremely convincingly and effectively. And whoever missed the I.M.F.s this time too made a grave mistake, which they should fix right away. The quartet will surely drop by Bluesiana again very soon, and that will be the first chance to repent of your sins. The guys glowed in all their splendor that evening. An evening packed with positive vibes and a pinch of sparkling comedy theater, which brought one of this year’s highlights to Bluesiana!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Bring It Easy 2. Dope Fiend 3. Are The Gods Smiling On Me 4. Intro / Happy When It Rains 5. I Will 6. Too Many Mountains 7. Apple Jack 8. Turnin The Other Way 9. Sweet Thang 10. The Groove Line —encore— 11. Love Song 12. I Don’t Know Why I Love You
Photo Gallery
