John Martyn – Live at the Lowry 2006
John Martyn played the Lowry Theatre (Salford, Manchester) last night and the big man is still on form.
John Smith – Support Act
Support act John Smith took to the stage first (see my seperate blog post on this guy) with his amazing acoustic guitar skills that are as mesmerising to watch as they are to listen.
John Martyn
John Martyn and his band took to the stage and played an all encompasing and well rounded set. There was something for everyone and he even played “Solid Air” albeit with his electric rather than acoustic guitar and with the rest of the band joining in. The version John plays these days is quite different to the track on his 1973 classic album solid air. For a taste of his updated version of this song, checkout this KCRW session.
Other tracks of note from last nights gig were: “Excuse Me Mister” a Ben Harper cover which originally appeared on John Martyns album of cover versions – “The Church with One Bell“; Updated (band inclusive) versions of “May You Never…” and “Don’t want to know“; and a great version of “Small Hours“, the guitar effects for which took quite some time to get right.
Its a fine thing to go to a gig like this and be completely absorbed in the performance from start to finish when the sum total of the visual effects used were a handful of spotlights which remained constant all night. No videoscreens, no fireworks, no dancing monkeys – just pure genius.
Syndication
