Re: Popper

[haandruss@xxxxxxx (Harvey Andruss)]

I haven't posted for a while and was surprised no one mentioned this over
the week end, so I thought I'd throw my little review this noon FWIW:

Blues Traveler appeared on the 1/2 hour cable TV broadcast of House of
Blues -- New Orleans on TBS this weekend. there were 4 or 5 songs including
(can't remember order right now) "Crashburn", "Stand", "Love & Greed", and
"Runaround" (which I've also seen on VH1 recently with a glowing review by
the VJ). It was a very dexterous performance to say the least (lots of
speed, very dense in the number of notes per measure), they were tight, and
they do like to jam (very spirited) -- however, the debate for me is still
on how interesting it all is (note choice, why so many and the same
sequences).  A bit of the shred mentality, if you ask me.  John sang well
enough, but his voice seemed strained in the 2 minute interview spot, which
based on their clothes appeared to be the same day (road weary?). Overall,
it was solid and I did like seeing it on the tube.

He pretty much used his one compressed tone, which is OK by me, but he did
use chorus/delay on one solo. He used a Shure 58 lookin' thing, two
homebrew red switches and a volume pot all taped up thru the bottom of the
mike.  Had some amp head with lots of knobs on a round table that you
couldn't see, but he didn't seem to futz with it.

They *DID* play a blues number, "Rock Me Baby", with Ackroyd (sp?) sitting
in -- it was a OK but this rendition didn't do much for me.  Dan came off
as too much of a goof with his Elwood two-step from 15 years ago. Must be
in the translation to TV ;-)   Officially they paid homage for their name
to Dan's movies "BLUES Brothers" and ~TRAVELER~ from "Ghostbusters".  I was
a little slow to react with the video (missed the first song), but I got
the others.

It's good to see HOB have the harp blow-outs and such (on this same show
they did feature "The 5 Blind Boys of Alabama" and Solomon Burke on the
same show -- hope I got that right), but last time I saw this they had
"Hootie and the Blowfish" on -- what's up with that?  Blue$ U Can U$e, Ted
?

Harv <HAAndruss@xxxxxxx> -- opinions mine, comments/corrections welcome,
                            but, if you must, flame direct ;-)