Frankfurt '86 (album): Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
| Line 46: | Line 46: | ||
This concert is unique in that it is the first known professionally shot concert performance of Allan playing the SynthAxe. This shows, as the system malfunctions on stage a couple times during the concert. Nevertheless, the performance is stellar. | This concert is unique in that it is the first known professionally shot concert performance of Allan playing the SynthAxe. This shows, as the system malfunctions on stage a couple times during the concert. Nevertheless, the performance is stellar. | ||
==Jimmy Johnson's comments on the album== | |||
In a recent post on the Alembic forum, Jimmy Johnson recounts his momeries of the Frankfurt ‘86 gig that was released on CD and DVD recently. The post is in response to a preview trailer, so for the context, we include the clip here: https://vimeo.com/423496357 | |||
This is an excerpt of Jimmy’s post, the link to the full post is: http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=8041.1500 | |||
“This particular gig was at the Frankfurt Musikmesse in 1986. That's the EU equivalent of our NAMM show here in the States but actually a larger exposition. I don't remember the exact circumstances which brought Kei Akagi into the band on keyboards, but this was his first and only tour with the band. He did an excellent job of dealing with the music but never had the chance to get very comfortable with it. Furthermore, I'm sure Allan and I got together with him in LA for a couple rehearsals but it's possible he had not yet played with Gary Husband until the day of this show.” | |||
“This was the very first gig of the tour - and likely funded our flight expenses to get to Europe. So we had flown in the day before, then spent almost all of this day jet-lagged and running around the Muskmesse collecting gear which had been offered from various manufacturers for use on the tour. But as I said, that convention is HUGE so picture us trying to find the Mesa Boogie booth (or whatever he was using at the time) on the floor of the show, then finding a handcart to wheel speaker cabinets the 2 miles to the venue, dealing with security to get the gear out of the building, etc... I have the feeling we had to chase down a drum kit that same way. That took all day leaving us precious little time for a soundcheck or a much needed rehearsal with the full band.” | |||
“So we had done what we could to get set up with the borrowed gear and get the monitors working so we could hear each other. We understood that we were contractually obligated to let the "festival" be recorded for a one-time tv broadcast. What we had NOT anticipated was that as soon as we started playing, 2 or 3 handheld cameramen and their cable wrangling assistants were running back and forth on stage basically in our faces. To the point where they were stepping on our pedals! Complete disregard for us trying to concentrate on the music. It was one of those situations where you needed to completely close your eyes and not see what was happening around you. But then my chorus effect would suddenly turn on. HA!!” | |||
“And as you can see in that keyframe, Allan had brought his SynthAxe on this trip. That's an amazing midi-controller device which Allan used to its fullest extent. He wrote and played some beautiful music with that machine. But it's a very complicated and very fragile "computer peripheral" which was not built for the road and did not travel well. This very clip demonstrates that problem well. It's the moment in the song "Atavachron" when we've come to Allan's solo ... and the SynthAxe fails. The guy calling cameras doesn't know what's happening so he just focuses on Kei who is playing the background chord sequence while I'm in the background watching Allan scramble to reboot the SynthAxe and get the correct solo sound up. Which he does for only the final few bars of the fixed-length solo. (And he plays some appropriately angry notes!)” | |||
“That was about as close as we got to a complete musical train-wreck on this gig. The only thing worse would have been if he could not have revived the controller and we would have had to stop mid-tune.” | |||
