Location: Velden am Wörthersee (Vrba na Koroškem) / Bluesiana Rock Cafe / Austria
Concert date: July 16, 2013
Attendance: 50
Ticket price: €37.00 (reservation) / €41.00 (day of show) / €31.00 (students) / €21.00 (under 21)
This time we didn’t have to wait long for another Bluesiana visit – apparently, besides Richie Kotzen, even an old Bluesiana regular, Eric Sardinas, couldn’t resist the summer charm of this beautiful town. A visit from the great bluesman with the resonator guitar was something we didn’t want to miss this time either.
Eric’s return to Bluesiana came around pretty quickly – barely three months since his last visit. Back then, the “king of good” packed Velden’s blues hall to the rafters. This time the crowd wasn’t big enough for people to be bumping into each other, which is otherwise a common sight at a Sardinas show. But the small crowd gave the gig a much more intimate vibe, and that’s definitely not a bad thing for the people who showed up.
Once again the little town of Velden, a stone’s throw from the Slovenian border in Austrian Carinthia, greeted us bathed in sunshine and with streets full of tourists. Nothing in town hinted at a modest turnout. In just under ten days, the walls at Bluesiana had switched from Kotzen’s pictures to Sardinas’s. So the inside of Bluesiana looked different from a little over a week ago, but the faces in it mostly didn’t. The regulars. Just in somewhat smaller numbers. But all of them full of happy anticipation.
Eric Sardinas started strumming strings at the age of six, and even back then he looked up to the legends of blues and r’n’b, and he’s stayed true to those sounds throughout his career. He’s best known as the king of the resonator (slide) guitar, which gives his songs that special edge.
Around 9:30 in the evening it was clear that the club was not going to be full, not by a long shot. The stage was all set up for the show, but there was still no sign of the band. The biggest skeptics started wondering whether the gig would even happen, given the small number of people in front of the stage, but finally Eric’s roadie started bringing towels and water onto the stage – as if Eric ever drank water on stage, and the towels only help him for 3 minutes anyway. Because of the lack of crowd, Bluesiana wasn’t giving off its usual energy, so tiredness and laziness started creeping over us, and we waited for the show to start with a lot of impatience.
At ten o’clock sharp, Eric Sardinas finally showed up on stage with his trusty Big Motor. In better spirits than he’s been in for a long time. When his opening tuning and noodling didn’t get as loud a cheer as he’d expected, he waved his arms to get the crowd shouting louder. And the crowd played along. And Eric was happy. He said he was glad to be back in the house of blues, as he always calls Bluesiana, and announced that this time the whole thing would feel like a private, intimate blues party and that they’d play until we chased them off the stage. A bold promise.
Eric doesn’t waste time on chit-chat, and this time too he got straight to business with the song I’m worried. It’s truly gripping to watch Eric from the front row and see how the expressions on his face shift with the lyrics and the melody. His interpretation of the songs is incredible. On his face you can read every ache of losing a loved one, of missing home, and just moments later the huge joy of the happiness that fills him. He sings his lyrics as if he were having a conversation with the audience. And whatever the crowd shouts back, it doesn’t throw him off for even a moment. He lives inside his songs, inside his melodies. After every number he comes back to reality, asks if we’re feeling good, and then dives with body and soul into the next song. He went on with Flames of love, which you can hear at every single show and which nobody ever gets tired of. Of course, Eric doesn’t do it all on stage by himself – he’s tirelessly backed by the bearded Levell Price on bass and young Bryan Keeling on drums. The trio’s tightness borders on perfection, even though Eric isn’t exactly a musician who plays his songs statically and the same way every time. Every show is a story of its own, demanding a fresh interpretation of the melody and lyrics, so it’s hard to sing along with Eric, even when you know the words. Because he always adds some changes in the rhythm, in the tones, in the verses… clearly he feels every show differently. And that’s why he’s always interesting to listen to and watch.
In the first part of the show we heard quite a few more tunes, from I can’t be satisfied through Get down to whiskey to Road to ruin, and finally a much calmer version of Find my heart. A little puddle of sweat slowly started to gather under Eric Sardinas, which his roadie kept wiping up, but after an hour of playing in the sweltering Bluesiana it was time for the first break. Half an hour later, once we’d all had a bite and some fresh air, Eric stepped back on stage full of energy, backed by Big Motor. The sweat had dried, the puddle too, and Eric was ready for new feats on stage. When he plays, Eric relies on the analog: apart from the amp, the only electronics he uses is a wah wah pedal, but everything around him comes in handy for his guitar, from metal slides to a bottle and even the mic stand, which he elegantly rubs his greatest love against while strumming. In the second part Eric served up County line, It’s nothing new, My sweet time, and he also gave Levell and Bryan a chance to shine on their own, handing them a solo spot. That slowly lifted the wholehearted crowd at Bluesiana into ecstasy, and by the end of the spot every last one of us was swaying to the rhythms, filling the space in front of the stage with our energy. When Eric came back on the scene, he felt it and fired the crowd up even more with Full tilt mama, which led to Levell’s amp blowing out. But of course that didn’t stop things from carrying on. While Eric played and sang Hellhound on my trail solo and acoustic, meanwhile messing with the shaking reverb springs in his amp by banging on it loudly and shaking the floor with his cowboy boots and flamenco-style dance steps, the crew got the amp hooked back up so Levell could be heard on stage again, and then all three of them played the indispensable Texola together. The second set had already run more than an hour, but the crowd was hungry for more. After the closing number Eric said goodnight, but as he left the audience hollered at the top of their lungs and it sounded like the club was packed to the walls. Of course Eric couldn’t ignore that, and all three came back on stage, thanked everyone once more, especially the hostess Gudrun, who always makes sure good music is heard at Bluesiana, and played Behind the 8 with a long intro. The clock was nearing one in the morning, Eric drew the last of his strength from the crowd with an encore, and finally we let him leave the stage in peace.
An unforgettable experience: a one-of-a-kind show by a one-of-a-kind performer of his own creations. An Eric Sardinas concert is etched into the audience’s memory forever, so if you missed it, you’ve got one more chance this week – Eric plays near us on the Croatian coast in the town of Vrsar on Friday, July 19, 2013. Definitely a great experience for the summer days, and not one to miss. We certainly won’t.
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