
Still vibrating in place after the show tonight, two of my absolute favorite musicians on the planet in the same night ?!??! man o man, Eric Johnson is just the goods, so smooth and unique, he makes it all look so easy, what a treat to see every single time, the friend I brought with agreed (she had never heard of him… I may have influenced her slightly!!). Dweezil Zappa was a nice surprise, dude can play, wild to see the older players – Billy Cox (long time friend/player with Jimi), Taj Mahal (damn he rules, more people have heard of BB King but trust me, Taj is the real deal), and the Slide Brothers (Zira had no idea what a lap guitar is… do you?), anyway they cut into some old blues with that lineup (catfish blues… hello!!??), awesome, awesome (did I mention awesome?).
So Doug Pinnick walks out on stage, something I have seen a thousand times over the years… but not in an environment like this (outside of Woodstock 94), his age… jeez, the guy has always been in insane shape all these years, he still looks the same to me all these years and tours later, I stood for his entire set, I didn’t want to miss a minute or a moment. I recognize a lot of the moves, the deliberate bass strikes and posing… and timing of riffs I have seen so many times before, but he is playing with Satriani and Aronoff… to me he is the show, the vocals, the presence, he is it all, it is all like I remember. The bass was pretty damn loud and low, almost too much, and hell he really didn’t get to show off his voice like he can (which would have brought down the house imo)… maybe he can’t hit those notes anymore, there were moments though, that reminded me, of me, of my life a decade ago, following King’s X around the south from Florida to the Carolinas, he shook some hands afterwards, I stayed back in my row, happy to just feel something familiar again, it has faded as of this post, but not completely, maybe I am making my way back, slowly.
I am posting videos on my Youtube account the next couple o’ days…