G3 UK 2004 Video Clips

I’ve put up some clips from the Glasgow and Manchester legs of the recent G3 UK tour.

Alas each clip is only 30s long, taken with a stills camera, IXUS 500. Due to our location at the Glasgow gig, ( e.g right by the speakers at the front ) most of the video footage taken was useless due to audio distortion, so these clips are of the quieter moments .

Enjoy!

The Amazing Eklundh!

I was pleased to discover recently that Mattias IA Eklundh was releasing a new solo record entitled ‘The Road Less Traveled’. To be released in Europe on the 19th July. Being a huge fan of his playing and music from his last solo record, ‘Freak Guitar’, and the music with the band Freak Kitchen, I wasted no time at all in ordering the CD from Amazon.

After the magical date of the 19th had past and I had not received anything in the post I checked Amazon to see what the hold up was and spotted the availability for the CD had been updated to ‘1-2 weeks’ ! . Eh…I think not. I cancelled the order and ordered the same CD from Amazon France. I did this on Tuesday 20th July. The CD arrived Wednesday 21st July. Zut Alors!.

After listening to the CD several times now I can safely say it’s easily on par with Freak Guitar, fresh, funky, quirky, scary and clearly bonkers sounding. I love it.

From the beautiful melody of title song, ‘The Road Less Traveled’, played in the unconventional Eklundh manner with harmonics and whammy bar, the genius of the sampled printer sounds of ‘Print This!’, the unbelievable skill of playing the guitar with chopsticks in ‘Chopstick Boogie’, the stunning cover of ‘Smoke On The Water’ and the 80s synth vibe of ‘Fletch Theme‘ ( inspired by the Fletch Lives books and films starring Chevy Chase ), the Album is a must have for those who love 21st century guitar playing.

Buy it now!

‘Is There Love In Space?’ Rehearsal Vid

Nice 17 min video of Joe Satriani’s pre-G3 rehearsal and listening party for ‘Is There Love In Space’ here.

BBC G3 Interview

It appears the BBC have interviewed Vai and Satriani on the recent UK G3 tour.

G3 Part 2 - The Manchester Gig

Following on from the last entry on the Glasgow G3 gig, here follows part two, The Manchester Gig.

We met up early with Paul McCrone on the Thursday who had offered to drive down to Manchester for the gig, top bloke. In fact we had arranged to meet at a new music shop in Edinburgh called ‘Guitarguitar’ , fab name eh? . I was very impressed with the shop, relaxed friendly staff, fantastic range of guitars, basses, amps etc. with such names as Tom Anderson and Collings hanging from their walls. I was also pleased to see that they stocked THD Hotplates, something that has been on my GAS radar for a while now. I think I may be paying them another visit one day.

So, after one long rock music filled car journey later we arrived in Manchester with just enough time to dump our gear off at the Hotel and meet up with some fellow UKMGers for a pre-G3 drink at the Tribeca. Myself, Paul Simpson, Paul McCrone, Rick, Ian, Chappers and James were present and a few drinks and much chatting was had by all before we parted company for the G3 crowd to make their way to the Apollo.

Seeing a show for a second time in as many days was something I had never done before and did feel slightly strange as I knew what songs would be played and in what order etc. So I watched/listened with a new angle on things, watching how things were being played, improvised etc.

Fripp’s set was as it was the night before and he seemed to be well received by the audience ,though not as well as the Glasgow crowd I thought. Following Fripp once again was Mr Vai whose flu had intensified since the previous night and he actually had a box of tissues onstage with him, blowing his nose in between songs! .

Satch was once again wearing a terrible hat but played brilliantly and energetically, the crowd getting to their feet and bopping along to ‘Hands In The Air’. The Jam at the end was spectacular but maybe due to Vai’s illness or the fact I had already seen it before, I thought it lacked a certain magic from that of the previous night.

After the show had finished the main highlight of the day drew closer. As I mentioned previously I was lucky enough to win a couple of ‘Meet & Greet’ passes where myself and Paul McCrone would get to meet the stars of G3. After my experiences in Amsterdam I think I was a bit over optimistic as to what this would entail. For a start there were alot more people hanging around waiting for the ‘Meet & Greet’ than I expected, there were probably about 30 of us all herded into a pokey stairwell hall awaiting our ’stars’. Satch was the first to arrive and was upbeat, chatty and a good laugh but things seemed too rushed due to the sheer volume of people. I was lucky enough to grab his attention and have some things signed, one an old Jem scratchplate I’m thinking of donating to the Jemfest UK raffle this year, plus the usual ‘picture with *insert hero here*’. Vai arrived slightly later after Joe and seemed uninterested, which wasn’t surprising considering he was under the weather. Once again I managed to get the vital signature for the scratchplate, hero pic and a couple of Metropole pics signed which grabbed his interest for a moment, telling me that his new CD, out in September, would feature the new song ‘Lotus Feet’ which I first heard in Amsterdam. We also chatted to Dave Weiner briefly where he kindly signed my copy of his new CD. There was no sign of Fripp, though I had expected as much .

I was slightly disappointed with the ‘Meet & Greet’, but as I said this maybe was due to the fact I had met Vai previously in Amsterdam and so had got over that initial ’surreal’ feeling of meeting your ‘guitar hero’. This time I wanted to ask Satch/Vai certain questions but the ’situation’ just seemed wrong.

All in all though two fantastic days of inspirational Guitar music, friends, travelling and rain! . You can see all the photos from the gigs here.