John Mayall
Thursday 15th April 2010
The Civic, Auckland
Review contributed by Sean McCarthy
I must admit that when I first heard he was coming to New Zealand I thought “Wow! I must go and see him, what with him being a ‘legend’ and all”, despite not being the biggest fan of the Bluesbreakers.
Then after I purchased my ticket and as I listened to some of his older albums I went through the “hmmmmmmmmms… do I really want to go?”, but in the last couple of weeks as the gig got closer and I read up on his new band I got more excited about seeing him live.
I got even more excited when I discovered that the Auckland Blues Club’s Patron, Hammond Gamble, would be opening the night.
This was a pretty old school sort of a gig.
John and some of his band were out in the foyer before the gig (and after too) selling and signing CDs, so I got to meet the man, shake his hand and buy my second copy of Tough (all be it autographed this time).
After 76 years and 50 plus albums, John is still going pretty strong and as he came out on to the Civic’s stage he joked that he was half expecting Dracula to appear from magnificent towers and internal décor that makes the Civic unique.
The gig itself was pretty cool, and it was almost like watching my band (well… sort of…) from the other side of the mic stand because after directing the lighting guy not to blackout the stage and the end of a song, the band missed and fluffed a couple of queues, John started playing harp in the wrong key at the start of one song, and had to read the lyrics for a couple of others.
He thought he had completely messed up the settings on his Roland keyboard at one point and Tim Canning, the keyboard player, had to come to his rescue.
With two keyboards on stage the band’s piano and organ driven is sound so different to the usual guitar-dominated blues bands, and surprisingly, John didn’t play guitar at all during the performance.
Guitarist Rocky Athas, who looks like the poster boy for Sunsilk shampoo, was content to operate in the shadows (quite literally) for most of the gig, had pedal issues and was constantly fiddling with his amp for the first half of the show.
Jay Davenport on drums was a monster… a dead-ringer for that alien turned good guy from Star Gate and just immense.
The drum kit took an absolute pounding and at least 1 pair of drumsticks were sacrificed on the night.
The afore mentioned Tim was a bit of a one trick pony I thought, but a great lesson in when to play and when not too… playing (or rather stalking) a Nord I think.
I’ve seen Greg Rzab on bass before playing in Buddy Guy’s band and I like his playing… he played a bit of slide on the bass at one point, and his big solo was a wee bit over the top and self-indulgent for my tastes, but pretty technically impressive.
From where I was in the stalls, stage left as you look at it, both the bass and the guitar could have up in the mix a bit.
The 2 hour show comprised of a fairly predictable set list I thought which included All Your Love, Parchment Farm, Oh Pretty Woman, Nothing To Do With Love and Dream About The Blues.
Room to Move provided all the members of the band a chance to stretch themselves with some extended solos, but personally I could have done without California and Checking On My Baby didn’t really go anywhere.
All in all and despite playing only one tune during the encore, the blues staple Hideaway, it was totally enjoyable show.
Sean is a currently President of the Auckland Blues Club and is the bass player in The Jukes and The Flaming Mudcats.
