tjcurtin1
March 10th, 2010, 08:09 PM
OK - first concert of the weekend...
John and the combo at Lupo's in Providence RI (not the old Lupo's for anyone who's been - it's in an old theater downtown now). A great show, with a range of great songs from across the years, along with several from the just-released album. The big problem was the sound system and mix, which was bad. You could only get what was being said/sung if you already knew the lyrics. For the new songs and any banter, it was every fourth word that you could catch. The bass was also boomy/muddy. The guitars were good, especially the mix with John's acoustic - usually the acoustic seems to get lost or overwhelmed, but it was right up front here.
The band was made up of Doug Lancio, who really played some great guitar throughout, Patrick O'Hearn on Bass and Kevin Blevins on drums. No back up/harmony vocals, just Hiatt doing it all. He was in great voice, and they all seemed to be having a great time. They closed with an absolute barn-burner rendition of 'Riding with the King'. All in all a real entertaining evening. I've wanted to see Hiatt live for a long time, and it was well worth the trip.
Lancio had a big rack of guitars that he was constantly cycling through! Some - the Gretsch country gentleman, the tele and the LP - were immediately recognizable, but several were not. I found a photo pf Lancio with one of them - http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm144/tjcurtin1/doug_lancio.jpg. I've never seen anything like it but I'm sure someone here will know what it is. He played this to great effect - a big, punchy sound - in Riding with the King. HE also played a strange little paddle-shaped body, short-necked, 12 string thing with two lipstick pups, also to nice effect but I forget which song...
John played acoustic about 2/3 of the time and his old tele the rest. Late in the show, my brother and I turned to each other and said simultaneously. "They use capos a lot." which was true, on both electrics and acoustics (tho sometimes Lancio did not capo when Hiatt did).
Last note - looking around, I was surprised how old all the rest of the audience looked - they were getting kinda long in the tooth...
John and the combo at Lupo's in Providence RI (not the old Lupo's for anyone who's been - it's in an old theater downtown now). A great show, with a range of great songs from across the years, along with several from the just-released album. The big problem was the sound system and mix, which was bad. You could only get what was being said/sung if you already knew the lyrics. For the new songs and any banter, it was every fourth word that you could catch. The bass was also boomy/muddy. The guitars were good, especially the mix with John's acoustic - usually the acoustic seems to get lost or overwhelmed, but it was right up front here.
The band was made up of Doug Lancio, who really played some great guitar throughout, Patrick O'Hearn on Bass and Kevin Blevins on drums. No back up/harmony vocals, just Hiatt doing it all. He was in great voice, and they all seemed to be having a great time. They closed with an absolute barn-burner rendition of 'Riding with the King'. All in all a real entertaining evening. I've wanted to see Hiatt live for a long time, and it was well worth the trip.
Lancio had a big rack of guitars that he was constantly cycling through! Some - the Gretsch country gentleman, the tele and the LP - were immediately recognizable, but several were not. I found a photo pf Lancio with one of them - http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm144/tjcurtin1/doug_lancio.jpg. I've never seen anything like it but I'm sure someone here will know what it is. He played this to great effect - a big, punchy sound - in Riding with the King. HE also played a strange little paddle-shaped body, short-necked, 12 string thing with two lipstick pups, also to nice effect but I forget which song...
John played acoustic about 2/3 of the time and his old tele the rest. Late in the show, my brother and I turned to each other and said simultaneously. "They use capos a lot." which was true, on both electrics and acoustics (tho sometimes Lancio did not capo when Hiatt did).
Last note - looking around, I was surprised how old all the rest of the audience looked - they were getting kinda long in the tooth...