# Jeff Beck in Ottawa



## bscott (Mar 3, 2008)

I don't have tickets but expect that there will be a blow by blow description posted some time before Monday morning!!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I'll be there, in row M. I don't know if I'll be able to give a blow by blow description before tomorrow, but I'm certainly wired for all the emotion and commotion.


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## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

He's also here in Kitchener in the near future. I'd like to go.


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## Hamstrung (Sep 21, 2007)

ThePass said:


> He's also here in Kitchener in the near future. I'd like to go.


Very near future... This Wednesday! I'm goin!


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Hamstrung said:


> Very near future... This Wednesday! I'm goin!


And I'm going also...thanks again to Hamstrung for being such thoughtful friend and getting me a ticket while I was in Norway this summer.

Cheers

Dave


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## noman (Jul 24, 2006)

I'll see you guys in Kitchener on Wednesday........was able to score front-row seats for this and I am jazzed!


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## NB_Terry (Feb 2, 2006)

I didn't know that the bassist, Rhonda Smith is Canadian.:smilie_flagge17:

I had relatives at the show. They sent this review below which is likely from an Ottawa newspaper.

Fans at the sold-out NAC’s Southam Hall were promised a performance that would “melt your faces off,” and Jeff Beck delivered in true guitar god fashion.

Often lumped in with fellow British six-string deities Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page — the three starred in succession with The Yardbirds before graduating to iconic status — Beck was always more adventurous in the blues than Clapton, more technically adept than Page.

But the thing that defined Beck to his legion of guitar geek fans was his fat Fender Strat tone — thick as a brick with teeth that could bite through steel.

That was evident from the opening strains Sunday night, with Beck’s gleaming white Stratocaster striking a sharp contrast to his wiry, black-clad frame, his skintight jeans tucked into leather boots, shirtless beneath black pinstripe vest and necktie, craggy face mostly obscured by opaque shades under one of rock’s truly great shag haircuts.

Beck bobbed and weaved around the melodious opener, Plan B, shedding the electronic blips of the studio version — from 2003’s Jeff — in favour of a more organic backdrop provided by keyboardist Jason Rebello, Halifax-born bassist Rhonda Smith and drummer Narada Michael Walden.

He let loose on Billy Cobham’s funky Stratus, tapping the strings in time with Walden’s best impression of the bombastic fusion drummer.

On the concert’s most tender notes — an interpretation of The Chieftain’s Mna na h-Eireann (Women of Ireland) and Jeff Buckley’s Corpus Christi Carol — Beck coaxed the melodies from his guitar, bending and shaping harmonics with the grace and precision of an old master.

Best known for impressionistic renderings of his contemporaries, Beck travelled some diverse terrain with The Impressions’ People Get Ready, Muddy Waters’ Rollin’ and Tumblin’ — featuring Smith’s inspired growl — and a hauntingly pretty Somewhere Over the Rainbow, before paying tribute to the ultimate guitar god in a faithful reading of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing, with Walden capably handling vocal duties.

That set the stage for the show-stopping highlight, Beck’s Grammy-winning take on The Beatles’ A Day in the Life.

• • •

Early in his 30-minute opening set, Tyler Bryant, the Texas-born, Nashville-based young guitar whiz, predicted the performance from his guitar hero that would “melt your faces off,” and he was right.

Bryant was no slouch himself pounding out dirty, guttural sounds from his sunburst acoustic that Guild never intended.

Opening with the dirty blues of Love You Like It’s the Last Time and The Good Life, Bryant apologized in a way for his weapon of choice for the tour.

“I don’t normally play these acoustic guitars because I always thought they were for cowboys,” he said.

But when he learned he won an opening slot for Beck, he “ran up and down the halls screaming like a 12-year-old girl,” and when he learned the set would have to be acoustic, he promptly “went out and got myself an acoustic guitar.”

He was at his best on the Muddy Waters-inspired Shackles.

“I feel like I’m playing in a living room up here, a really freaking big living room,” he joked. “And then Jeff Beck walks into your living room and melts your faces off.”


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Excellent, and well-written review.

I'll just add to it by noting that Beck whipped out a Les Paul to play a tribute during the encore to Mr. Polfus himself, with "How High the Moon". I gather the vocals were pre-recorded, but that's okay, everything else was live.

The real surprise of the evening was a couple of covers during the encore. One was a rousing cover of the Sly Stone tune "I wanna take you higher", that most folks will likely know from the Woodstock film. The band synchrony was a little shaky at times, but generally a solid performance. The aforementioned Mr. Bryant came out on Strat and traded licks back and forth with Mr. Beck. The other cover was preceded by some of the very few words that Beck uttered over the course of the evening. He turned to the band and sad "I'm feeling pretty confident. I think we can do this.", and then began picking something that sounded vaguely familiar. It wasn't until the signature chorus that I recognized it as the Lady Gaga tune "Bad Romance".

Jason Rebello is certainly a competent keyboard player, and provides the sort of backing that allows Beck to lay magnificant lines over top of, but when it comes to trading licks, he's not that strong of a personality. You get the sense that he has a repertoire of recycled Jan Hammer Minimoog licks, but nothing that allows a solo to build and peak. Beck, meanwhile doesn't have "licks" so much as ideas. When he plays a solo, it's a succession of ideas _about_ guitar, and they're all *great* ideas.

Not that he has a shortage of material to draw from, or a good ear for tunes to cover, but I think he should do an instrumental version of this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YONAP39jVE It's a classic from the Jewish Day of Atonement service. And yes, though it is sung by Barbra "like butter" Streisand, I can always hear in the back of my mind what Beck could and would do with it, and it's every bit as scary as "Nessun Dorma" or what he does with Imogen Heap on "Blanket" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IMhejTbIGM.

Two final notes:
1) I went with my sister, and looking around the lobby and the concert hall, told her that "At least half these tickets were paid for with pension cheques.". I'm 59 and I felt like the "kid" in the place. And when the stage lights got bright, the glare off the bald pates in the first couple rows was blinding. Happily, though, many of those in attendance appear to have brought their kids, which bodes well for the future.
2) Tyler Bryant was, as promised, selling and signing CDs in the lobby after the show. I approached him with the one question I wanted answered: "How the hell do you get an acoustic to sound like P90s through a Hi-Watt?" His coy response, uttered like an old ad for Lady Clairol hair colour, was "I'll never tell!".


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## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

Hamstrung said:


> Very near future... This Wednesday! I'm goin!


Well there ya go! I knew it was coming up, lol................right on, should be good


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## bscott (Mar 3, 2008)

Thanks guys. 

B


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## gproud (Mar 2, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Excellent, and well-written review.
> 
> I'll just add to it by noting that Beck whipped out a Les Paul to play a tribute during the encore to Mr. Polfus himself, with "How High the Moon". *I gather the vocals were pre-recorded, but that's okay, everything else was live.*
> 
> ...


I'm a little late to the Beck threads. I saw him in Moncton on the 13th and just wanted to add the vocals for 'How High The Moon' are Imelda May from his Les Paul tribute he performed with her and her group last year. He said in an interview he just couldn't imagine doing that song without Imelda singing it, so he got her vocal track for it.

An amazing show...


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The Sugarmegs archive has the Toronto and Thunder Bay shows posted for download, for those interested. Identical sets to the Ottawa songlist, as near as I can tell. A fellow I ran into in a Tim Horton's after the show told me he had seen the Montreal show the night before at Place des Arts, and found the Ottawa show was much better. Not sure why the difference, but that's what he said.


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