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Tuesday, November 29, 2005 |
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| Topics for Tuesday, November 29, 2005 1. Mike in Luxembourg: impressions - Dirk Vael |
| 1. Mike in Luxembourg: impressions |
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| From: | Dirk Vael <dirkv @ securewave.com> |
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| Date: | Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:40:28 +0100 |
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Friday, 25.11, 20h00, Conservatoire de Musique,
Merl, Luxembourg.
Dominic Miller (acoustic guitar)
Mike Lindup (piano & vocals) Nicholas Fiszman (bass) Rhani Krija (percussion) William Topley (guest vocals) http://www.williamtopley.com to cut my story short, read these 2 first, from Miller freaks:
http://dmadmin.proboards19.com/index.cgi?board=Mife&action=display&thread=1132991565
http://dmadmin.proboards19.com/index.cgi?board=Dominic&action=display&thread=1132998682 About 300 attendees
tickets were 20-25 euro Distance from players: between 10 and 100 feet (I was about 25 feet away) just some notes I
brainstorm here from that night
room was like a small classic, clean (chique!) but
very modern concert hall, with steep lines of chairs
sober setup - 1 big black Steinway & Sons piano with gold plated wheels, 1 acoustic guitar, 1 electronic guitar, 1 bassguitar, 2 microphones (one for Mike!), and what looked like some little Istanbul bazaar stand which was actually all kind of percussion instruments (even strings of shells, weird stuff, really, but gave that extra background spice to all, together with a hi-end small Roland drumpad) All 5
were in casual dress
(Miller & bassist had even worn pants!) except for Rhani who had
some traditional indian alike clothing.
They all sat down, never stood up, except for Topley when he
sung.
Mike, dressed up in blue jeans, red pull, still had his small beard. He looked in the beginning very concentrated, but soon his smile came on and stood the rest of the gig. Before any sound was heard, the bass guitarist
switched on his guitar but the soundboard guy already had the volume up,
resulting in a big boom, the player raising his hands to the
public.
No introduction at all who was who, Miller started
straight away, eyes closed
As said, Mike looked very concentrated, watched continuously the others and starting using his magic fingers after 2 minutes or so. Mike did started to laugh heavily when Miller
could not come up with the name of a track he just played after the first speech... took him a minute or so to settle...
funny!
Tracks were most of Miller's 1st & 3rd
album (can't remember names, see other 2 links), plus some tracks of Sting, one
track of Level 42 (Love Meeting Love, but a jazzy version you would kill one
for!! Mike went ballistic on this one), but also a track of J.S. Bach (Air on a G-string) and even Eric Satie (Gymnopedie 5)... just f'ing
incredible what that guy can do!! A mix of
funk, jazz, acoustic unplugged, some rock flava, blues too... cool cocktail if
ya ask me... soundsystem was very impressive I must say (although the bass was a
bit too loud in the beginning, and at the end the percussions were a bit too
background, but overall the soundboard engineer did a fine
job)
imagine: Mark's vocals
on 'Love meeting love' by an acoustic guitar, song blending into some
soul-jazz version of at least 7 minutes, unrecognizable in the end but I didn't
give an F, it just sounded flabbergasting
fantastic!
Mike vocals were in the style as he did on 'Jung',
no real words, just as keyboard replacements - great great great! Even a scat session
with Miller towards the end, where they stopped playing, Mike just went on on
vocals, turned to the public, and they all started scatting with
Mike....and holy moly, was that some funky track they did during this scat! Rhani went ballistic
too on jembe percussion at a certain moment, the
guy knows all the tricks.
Miller had a lot of humour, didn't go shy of
using 4 letter s & f words.
He admitted they had NO setlist, just some scribbled notes, and they would play what they feel like, so they often had to deliberate what to play next, even Mike made a suggestion to Miller which he accepted! True, it was different from other sets They even played his
new unfinished track TWICE, one time instrumental, then he invited Topley right
after and he did the vocal part. But it didn't sound the same, since
Miller said the other band members did not play this before, the first time they
could listen & improvise, the second time right after they played more
in sync! (Mike had 2 postit notes on his piano he ONLY used for this moment, so
I guess it was true!).
The tracklist
notes Miller used to pick his tracks
were thrown to public at the end, and
didn''t last long before the hungry wolves took
'em!
Public gave Mike a thrilling response when
Miller presented him as Level 42 member. Mike
stood up and bowed down, like we all remember him. He was also the guy at the
end thanking Dominic Miller (like he did with Mark King on the Physical Presence
88 track ending - Miller thanked the other 4 guys, so one had to thank him,
and that could only have been Mike of course!)
You did notice sometimes it was not well rehearsed,
that players had to sync with others (in beginning, percussionist had diffs
following, then it was the bass guitarist, even Mike in the end had to adjust
his tones!)
From time to time Miller or Nicolas hit the wrong
note (Miller did show it with a facial expression, second time he looked rather angry to the
bassist!!)
Topley as guest vocalist came after about 1hr, did
a song, left, came 30 mins later back and did another one! Great voice too, a
bit rough, sung through the nose, but give good taste to the jazzy music with
some rock flava!
Overall they all looked soooo relaxed, making it
even more impressive!
they came back twice to play extra songs,
one-but-last (Bring on the night/World running down), Mike went just NUTS on the
piano, didn't strike a single bad note... whow guys, now that was quite a moment
to remember, jaw-dropping what he did there.... he still has it!
Very last song was (one of my faves all time)
Sting's seminal 'Fragile' in some live-only extended version, where Miller noted
"during concerts with Sting, he always does the guitar and I the bass, but we
all know, despite Sting being a good guitarist, the order is wrong. So now I
will show you how it should really sound like" ;-) Never thought I would
hear Mike play this song once live, but now I did!
Overall, awesome, I really put a big smile on my
face seeing Mike back, I really miss his music. All 4 just showed they
were great musicians, the audience realized it aswell. No need for big
spectacles, dancers and TV screens (like
Rolling Stones, U2, Madonna,
Britney etc), this sometimes really intimate atmosphere was just
PURE... one for the soul. Amen
:-)
oh, it lasted for
about 1h30 only (too bad!), and only Miller showed up to sign some CDs. No
trace of Mike nor of his album for
sale... :-/ |
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