| |
Whiskyfun
Home
(Current
entries)
Concert
Review
Index
(All Reviews
Since 2004)
Leave
feedback
 |
Copyright
Nick Morgan and crew
|
|
|
Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
|
 |
 |
JOHNNY
WINTER AND HIS BAND
The Astoria, London, April
27th 2007
We’ve
just demolished a delicious plate of crispy fried
eel and the table’s being cleared. “Where
you go tonight” asks our waiter, “Show,
maybe drinking?”. “Concert, Johnny
Winter”. “Who?”
he replies, faced etched with puzzlement –
then he relaxes, “Ah yes, isn’t he
some country and western guy?”. |
|
In the Astoria on the stairs there’s a punter
on the ‘phone: “No, I told you last
time he was fucking shite. He was so shite I said
I’d never go and see him again. It was fucking
awful. I don’t know. Yes I know I said I’d
never go and see him again, but well, you know
….” The omens aren’t good. And
upstairs with the old folks in the Pickle Factory
(actually it’s old folks downstairs too)
there’s a prescient atmosphere, but I can
tell that the toothless soothsayers around us
(some have brought their sandwiches to sooth on
with their warm canned beer) are only foretelling
doom. Me – I’m just surprised to be
here. I had honestly thought Johnny Winter was
dead. |
| And
for the benefit of our charming waiter at the Fung
Shing let me remind you that in his day Johnny
Winter was the king of hot-shot blues-rock guitarists.
Plucked from obscurity by the magazine Rolling Stone
("Imagine a 130-pound cross-eyed albino bluesman
with long fleecy hair playing some of the gutsiest
blues guitar you have ever heard.") his striking
features and equally striking guitar style were
a constant features of the early seventies music
scene. Plagued by ill-health since childhood, Winter’s
response was to plunge himself into drug and alcohol
addiction from which he returned in the late seventies
to produce Muddy Waters’ final three albums,
including the outstanding Hard Again. |
 |
| Since
then he’s turned himself increasingly to the
blues, and although his fame has somewhat diminished,
he has continued to tour and record – 21 albums
in all, several of which, including the 2004 offering,
I’m a Bluesman, have been Grammy nominated. |
| Opening
is Scott
Mckeon and his band, playing Hendrix-tinged
pedal-fuelled (to be accurate a Blues Power Fuzz,
an 808 Tubescreamer, a Roger Mayer Octavia, a Voodoo
Vibe Jr, a Line 6 DL4 and not forgetting a Fulltone
Clyde Wah) blues – he was also warm up man
for Joe Bonamassa. But despite the polite reception
he gets the audience is only here to see one man.
It’s a Friday night – the Pickle Factory
goes GAYE at 11.00 pm so we don’t have to
wait long for Winter’s band to take the stage.
Guitarist Paul
Nelson, drummer and occasional vocalist Wayne
June and bassist Scott
Spray run through a noisy rhythm and blues piece
before Winter
is helped up onto the stage. He’s accompanied
to his chair, walking with a deep stoop like a seriously
old man – he’s cadaverous – his
arms skin and bone. Once in his chair he crouches
painfully over his lightweight Erlewine Lazer and
it’s clear that while the mind seems willing
the body ain’t. |
| His
playing is very stiff and slow – and strangely
guitarist Nelson
has left the stage. I always imagined in situations
like this it’s the guitarist’s job to
cover for his boss – but he only returns for
the final number, leaving Winter’s frailties
cruelly exposed. There are odd flashes of real class
– notably in the first solo on ‘Blackjack
Blues’ (attributed by some to Bob Dylan but
thought to be a Ray Charles original) for the most
part his playing is a shadow of the past. That’s
not to say it doesn’t get better as the night
goes on but it’s always careful and restrained.
He’s also lost his voice – ‘though
he does sing on a number of songs and occasionally
rises to the moment – such as encore ‘Highway
61’. It’s a desultory affair –
almost painful to watch at times - with the crowd
I think just relieved that he makes it through each
song. In the end he plays for about 75 minutes (an
unduly long portion of which is taken up by a very
indifferent ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ during
which Wayne June narrates the story of Johnny and
Muddy, as if we didn’t know), finishing on
slide and his famous Gibson Firebird. Then his assistant
and band carefully help him to the back of the stage
and down the steep stairs to his dressing room. |
| You
can’t help wondering why artistes put themselves
through this sort of thing – can it really
just be for the money? Or is there something about
the adrenalin rush of being on stage that they simply
can’t give up? Either way my advice to Mr
Winter would be to rest on your laurels, embrace
your great past, and stay at home. By the way, in
case you’re wondering, Johnny does have a
brother called Edgar,
who he still teams up with occasionally, and who
unlike his brother is in pretty good shape. We saw
him a couple of years ago – as a result he’s
a Whiskyfun Music Award Winner – and if he
turns up in your town I’d happily suggest
you go along for some fun. It’s a shame I
can’t say the same about his brother. -
Nick Morgan (concert photographs by Kate) |
Edgar (left) and Johnny Winter, 1976
|
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
|
|
|
|
|
There's nothing more down there... |
|
|
|
|
