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Gig Review by Jeifer
www.FasterLouder.com.au
Jeff Beck @ Perth Concert Hall 22/1/09
27th January, 2009
Moving the Jeff Beck gig from Challenge Stadium to the Perth Concert Hall was a masterstroke. The added class, clarity and luxury befitted the standing of Beck, a man who has more credibility and peer-respect than any other living electric guitarist.
Pre-show, the bar was filled with tidy baby boomers who had dug their denims out of the closet and looked surprisingly cool. Most stood in groups, swigging beers from the bottle and swapping stories of gigs from their youth: Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Saxon. “Yeah, I’ve kept all my vinyl,” they said with great pride. Others sat at tables with grown sons and well-dressed wives.
But the best dressed person in the venue was Melbourne’s Jeff Lang , who plied his nimble-fingered blues / roots trade in a sharp grey suit. The Concert Hall’s acoustics were ideal for his solo set. From the get-go until the last warm, downtuned phrase of his final song, the cascade of notes coming from his lap-steel sounded like three guitarists instead of one.
Jeff Beck and his cream Stratocaster hit the stage, both looking rock-classic and fit. Beck mixed leather pants with a white cravat and a waistcoat that matched his muddled coal-black hair. He didn’t say a word. Kicking off with proud faux-military drums, Beck’s Bolero set the tone straight away. It was a melodic showcase of bends, slide, tapping and mastery of the whammy bar. All without a guitar pick in sight.
After a run-through of The Pump , they brought in the bluesy riffery of Eternity’s Breath . Drummer Vinnie Coaliuta went impressively mad while the rest of the band held down the tune’s main theme.
Moving swiftly into the funk of You Never Know , Australian bassist Tal Wilkenfeld grooved on her Sadowsky Jazz Bass with slender fingers that could very likely crush a new tennis ball into powder. Her curls swayed around her shoulders as she moved spider legs across her fretboard, exchanging glances with Beck. She might have been the only woman under 25 in the whole venue.
Beck’s classic prog-rock ballad So We’ve Ended As Lovers was what many punters came to hear, and it was the business. Its lush chords and extra-human melodies twisted feelings and moved through mixed emotions like a breakup would. A killer bass solo by Wilkenfield mixed soulfulness with literally stunning virtuosity; people were clapping and whistling before she’d even finished. The stage techs pressed the advantage with smoke and lighting that fitted the tune like a glove.
Beck led his band through moments of straight-out rock, prog fusion, reggae, illegally groove-laden funkiness and technical blues.
The gig reached its apex with the DnB / Indian-vocal cover tune Nadia , a song that gripped you with such unspeakable beauty and dance-velocity, it was like crying tears of joy at God’s own rave party. Beck’s mastery of simultaneous volume swells and micro-tonal whammy-bar precision found pockets of untapped emotion living in the gaps between the 12 standard musical notes. One guy couldn’t help himself, shouting out “Heaven!” at the song’s close, drowned out by frenzied applause.
The main set closer was a stunning cover of The Beatles A Day In The Life . A standing ovation followed.
The final encore Where Were You , with just Beck and keyboardist David Sancious was a gorgeous exhibition of harmonics and whammy; a serene and sublime close that held the recently-raucous crowd in silent thrall. After a final thankyou, Beck left the stage with his strat slung over his shoulder, like a smiling leather-clad hobo with his pack on a stick.
A neat dad in his late fifties, leaving the concert hall with his son in a Slipknot Japan Tour t-shirt and shorts, summed it all up with his single word: “beautiful”.
Only three guitarists have ever pushed solo instrumental rock albums into Billboard’s top 40, and Beck was the first. Credit that to his unique way of fusing the appealing with the technical. The guy is a legend, and this show was worth the 34-year wait.
