Well, just driven back the 150 miles or so and will give you my thoughts (reaching for a fire-blanket;)):
Keller Williams: :jawdrop:
He only got a measly 45 minutes, but man did he use it well. I expected a more acoustic stripped down show, but we had 4 guitars, bass, keys and theramin. I knew it was going to be good when he broke into a mental Groove Is In The Heart second song. Other highlights were Sultans of Swing and a fantastc Boob Job, complete with theramin. Crowd lapped it all up and were bouncing along, with the result that when he finished the love, as they say, was huge. Unfortunately no time for an encore. It was great for me to actually see how k-dub puts together the loops and I would put him up there in my list of top three solo performers I\'ve seen - alongside Daevid Allen and Tim Rose.
Particle: :sadban:
Where do I start? Talk about an over-rated band. Their opening piece - I hesitate to call it song as they didn\'t play one proper song all night and it was hardly a jam as it was based on a two chord vamp, going down to a one chord drone, only spiced up by some fairly good guitar work for the last few minutes - went on and on and on and on... and on for over 20 minutes (I know, I timed it!); there was no tension, no real direction, no variety of tone. That could also be said of the guitarist, who at times reminded me of when Dave Gilmour still played with some edginess, but after a while his sound was monotonous.
The rest of the set followed in the same vein - very average keyboard work, with lots of oscillators - I think the guy would love to replace Harvey Bainbridge in Hawkwind - and he was often out of time with the drummer, who to be fair was pretty tight, but uninspirational - workmanlike, is the term. The bassist rarely moved out of one position for each piece - Ron would rip him apart!! I left after one and a half hours as they were announcing the last song just before 10 pm. Maybe they played an encore, maybe not - frankly I don\'t really care! I wasn\'t the first to go by a long way - many started leaving after 45 mins or so. As I left I said to the security guy, who didn\'t look impressed with particle, that I\'d only come to see kw - he replied, "Most people did!!"
At least I had the RR party to listen to in the car on the way home - got me most of the way back, then followed that up with some vintage k-dub.
Interestingly enough, talking to a girl from Chicago in the queue to get in, she reckons Umphreys are now bigger than the biscuits and will be the next big jamband. But then again, she was a big Particle fan!!
