Peter Green and Band Paradiso Amsterdam 21.2.2009
 

I have not been able to record the show, but I really hope someone else did! IT WAS GREAT! I am happy I travelled all the way to Amsterdam to attend to this occasion. The concert lasted about one hour and ten minutes. The band was late because they had not been able to find their way around the streets of Amsterdam.

Unfortunately I could not keep track of all the numbers, and I can't remember them all (maybe somebody else can fill in here) because I was too busy listening to the music (I am sure you get this doodyhead), (but amongst others) they played:

Blues Don't Change (the first number) - Canvey Island Session arrangement.
Some Hank Marvin piece that I don't remember the title of, but played brillianly by Green - very very good, clear tone and determined..
On The Hook
I was A Fool To Love You - A Billie Holiday song?
Long Grey Mare - PG had trouble with the harmonica there. They had trouble with the sound some of the time. The sound technician sometimes held his head in his hands!
Albatross Lovely tone, but played a bit too fast for my liking.
Still beautiful!
The Stumble - in a much more vital version than with Splinter Group. Great! Closer to the original version in my opinion.
Black Magic Woman - the audience sang along and knew every word. He seemed a bit taken aback by this...
The Thrill Has Gone - Canvey Island arrangement. Beautiful - "B.B. eat your heart out" - I really mean this and I love B.B. King! A very sad slow version. It was the last number before the encore which I don't remember.

Peter Green sat down during the whole of the show, but compared to five years ago with S.G. he was in a much more central position. He didn't have any guitar changes at all. His singing is much better too. Most of the time he seemed to enjoy playing immensely - and we were treated to those moments of pure bliss. Sometimes he seemed to get lost though, and loose contact with the core within himself where the music comes from. When that happened the other musicians seemed very concerned. Mike Dodd had a kind of "Master of Ceremonies" position and helped PG overcome his insecurities. He was doing a great job getting PG back on the right track when this happened, having eyecontact with him all the time. The 'down-side' of this was that the music sometimes were played too fast, because Mike Dodd acted as a kind of energy booster

I stood very close to the stage and was able to watch the interactions very closely. PG does not seem to be pressured to do the FM stuff (which the audience cried out for), and with the help of the band (and especially Mike Dodd) you got the feeling that you were participating in a session with friends practicing. It was very laid back in a way.
Matt Radford played up-right bass (do you call it that?) and Geraint Watkins played organ beautifully giving the whole show a godspell-like feeling. He is really really good.

The Amsterdam audience loved Peter Green. Mike Dodd commented at one point that he would love to take us with him on the rest of the tour. The audience loved PG when he goofed as well as when he was brilliant - just like it should be.

A great show - and this was only the second show of the tour!!!
I heard rumours that they are planning a small tour of Engalnd in april. I hope everybody here will get a chance to see and hear Peter Green and his Band.

Ms Moose

Thank you for this review. I have waiting for someone to say something about PG's shows. Sounds pretty positive. Hope he decides to come to the US with this band.

thanks Ms Moose
 

like librax said, it sounds like a goot time was had. lucky folks

I also hope they are encouraged to want to take the show on the road,

or at least make a live video/audio recording for us out here in the wilderness

the road is ha harsh task master and I would not blame them for a modest adventure

doodyhead, mel and vinnie

Dear Ms Moose , thank you for your very interesting review. :xoxo:

Tack så mycket, Ms Moose!

Thanks a lot Ms Moose, I had really been looking forward to your "review". :D

"Long Grey Mare" must have been cool!
Perhaps the Hank Marvin song was "Midnight", which he did on the Shadows tribute album "Twang!".

Do you know what guitar he played?
Did any of the other musicians sing any songs, as I remember they where listed on vocals?
And did Mike Dodd do much lead guitar, or did Peter do most of the soloing?

It must have quite an experience for you to see Peter back onstage and enjoying himself without any pressure. That's the way it should be! :D

I'll get back to you folks later, i'm very busy with my work at the moment.
I will too make a review because I experienced the gig completely different. I thought it was terrible! I made a rcording but haven't found the time yet to find out if it worked allright (it was a complete new recording device for me, and I didn't have time to see how it worked). Then I had to use it in the dark....
For one thing Mike did not do any lead guitar, did some vocals, but no character in his voice. I have to stop now. Till later
:shrug:

I'm really looking forward to hear your point of view too, Wouter! :)
Sounds interesting that the two of you have such different experiences.

Albatross (Albert Ross :)) from the gig is up at Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH9YBnJ1E4U

Absolutely beautiful guitar tone. And it sounds really good with double bass.
Wonder if the guy taped more of the gig.

Interesting review. Many thanks.

I guess that the Shadows number they played may well have been 'Dance On!'
They played that tune when I saw them rehearse toward the end of last year in East London.

I'm impressed
 

I'll second Dino on the guitar tone, especially for a Strat. I wonder what amp he was using. I also liked that Green played the song with the flourishes included (as per studio version). Sometimes he doesn't play it that way (BBC, Splinter Group footage), and that's not how I like my Albert Ross. Give me more footage, I'm officially psyched. :]

Here's a little more.

I noticed a guy asking Mike Dodd for his setlist. He amde a scan of it and sent that to me. I've attached it here. The band played two extra's.
The complete setlist (for those like me who find it hard to read Mike's handwriting:
01 Blues Don't Change
02 Chicken Window
03 Dance On
04 Many Rivers To Cross
05 Guess I'm A Fool
06 Albatross (see the youtube video)
07 When Lights Go Out
08 Lucky Old Sun
09 Stranger Blues
10 Off The Hook
11 Long Grey Mare
12 The Stumble
13 The Thrill Is Gone
Bonus:
14 Rainy Night In Georgia
15 Black Magic Woman
Just listened, and it sounds like there was another, but the recording stopped after a couple of second, ooops!

Ivé got it taped, have to do some editing but will let you folks know

wouter and ms moose,

thanks for the reports, set list and promise of a recording. it would be wonderful for us if this is the beginning something great for pete. as mario said 'fingers crossed' and ours to enjoy for the present. zero

Thanks for the youtube link, Dino! Wonderful! :D

Hi, fantomfinger! :wavey: Could you tell more about attending the rehearsal?? That must have been awsome! What is your impression? Is this a promising band?

Thanks very much for the setlist, Wouter! :D
Did Peter sing "Lucky Old Sun"?? :shocked:
Would you care to say more about your impressions of the gig?

Yes, thanks a lot for the setlist and for recording!

Hm, Lucky Old Sun must be the old standard, Many Rivers to Cross, the J. Cliff song,
Rainy Night the Tony Joe White song. Stranger blues is Elmore James.
Off the Hook - the Rolling Stones song?
Intriguing.

great video
 

the tone was beautiful

Oh yeah!
 

Can anyone speculate PG' s setup? Could it be an EC Strat into a Fender '65 Deluxe Twin Reverb? I'm so proud of that 'Albatross' footage on so many levels. 1) Performance. I've seen Youtube footage of Peter Green with his Splinter Group, and he looks like a unwilling robot. 2) Tone. Of all the guitarists of his generation, along with Gilmour, Townshend, and Jesse Ed Davis, they were the few that knew how an electric guitar should sound. This performance proves that he hasn't lost that edict.

Thanks to Wouter & dino
 

Thank you very much for the setlist, Wouter :thumbsup:
"Rainy Night In Georgia" - wonder how Peter Green did Tony Joe White's song? :cool:
Thank you very much dino for the "Albatross"-link. :thumbsup:

I'm happy to see Peter playing so beautifully !!! :)

Thanks dino for this link.

Krzysztof

You know where the tone comes from bro he could be playing a cheapo squire or whatever (no offence squire can be good if set up nice) its in his fingers completely.It don´t matter what type of guitar he plays peter will always sound like peter. Although he loves his reverb :p.

Yes, yes, it's all in the hands. Yet that tone is too rich to just be "hands". I have a friend who has a 1991 Squire Strat. Compared to the ones they make today, it might as well be a proper Fender Strat. Today's Squires are manufactured on the cheap.

Any good handwired boutique tube amp would do the trick, all the fender and marshall off the shelf ones suck. They are made with printed circuit boards mass manufactured in china and dont sound like the original ones. They are dead noisey too and cost as much as a non big named handwired amp. If your looking for that kind of set up you either need an original from back in the day or one of the new "boutique amps".
You know this is one of the things i don´t understand about the so called modern guitar greats steve vai etc when can you ever hear them just play a guitar plugged straight into an amp with no effects...never been impressed by bells and whistles of the modern metalers...well i think i´ve started ranting :lol: so i will end it there.
Agreed though great greeny tone as ever.

Speaking of "boutique amps", I saw one reviewed on Guitar World on-demand about a year ago. It was a Victoria Victorilux, and it had the sweetest tone I'd ever heard. It had two Jensen speakers, and I swear the amp was putting out a 3-D stereo effect.
Yours for around $2795.


My friend with the old Squire has a 2005 Fender Blues Jr. amp, which sounds "ok" to my ears. I also know there's a tube, and circuit board upgrade for this amp that really makes it cook.


As for the modern metalers the scooped out mid-range tone really grates on me. Worse, they actually make amps specifically for this sound.

You can get a excellent boutique amp for under 1000 euros im sure, i dont know what the conversion rate is but if your in the usa im sure u could get one under 1000 dollars.
Plus it would last you a lifetime so its a good investment.

ah, it's an equipment thread now. Well, boutique amps are for lawyers, doctors and other non-players into expensive toys. I've witnessed many performances by great players with absolute crap-equipment and they sounded great. BB King plays a solid state amp, so what?
Gear is a nice obsession for many "musicians" but ultimately irrelevant and a waste of time, IMO.
Great to see Peter Green play!:nod:

Yes, yes, "it's all in the hands". We know B.B. King has a special guitar with a pull switch that allows him to play solos "out of phase", just like Green's original LP.

I need to know what solid state amps B.B. is using these days. I just can't believe that statement. (sorry :shrug:) Then again...no, that's for another subject.

in the last 10 years BB King lists this
 

he uses a stock
Lab 5 Amp with 2 12 jensen speakers
on the road when requesting amplification
he uses a Fender Twin with 2 12 lansing speakers( he will not use a fender twin II)dont know what year
(this is from his road manager included with book BB King "Treasures"

In the sixties and seventies he travelled with two fender Twins He had one channel for each input of the gibson stereo. ES355TDSV
everything else was TONE

doodyhead, mel and vinnie

What's the definition of a "boutique" amp? I'm curious.
I play a little and may buy a new amp soon.
Are tubes the way to go?

Well i would recommend tubes for sure for several different reasons. One of the features of a good tube amp is that it responds well to how you attack the note, they can be very dynamic and sensitive to the controls and volume of your guitar which is nice.
I´m a firm beliver in plugging straight into the amp without any junk inbetween, cheeky touch reverb is nice and a wah wah for a change of sound every now and then, for i´m a beliver that its all in the hands, although have you heard santana these days since he stopped using the SG he has a horrible tone.
I digress a little so depends what you want though and what your gonna use it for. If your just gonna have a practise amp then obviously spending loads of cash on a expensive one is a bit of an indulgence. If your playing in a band then i would definetly recommend one.:D Valve amps basically are the best but usually at a cost.

Boutique amps are tube driven (usually) hand made amps , with only the best materials. They are supposed to resemble (in sound) the amps made by Fender, Marshall, and Vox (among others) in the 50's and 60's.

Carlos Santana plays Paul Reed Smith guitars, a great guitar company. I was never a fan of Santana's tone, so it's how he has it set up. PRS guitars and Mesa-Boogie amps in theory should give you a great sound.

In fact PRS is currently Jeremy Spencer's guitar of choice. From what I've heard of his recent work, he has a great tone.

That Lab5 must be a special SS amp, if he's using Fender Twins the rest of the time.

"PRS guitars and Mesa-Boogie amps in theory should give you a great sound."

Occasionally Santana does manage a good tone from this setup, so for sure it's possible, although usually he tends to opt for that overly smooth flat sounding commercial driven noise:distress:

okay, so we're discussing boutique amps. here's where I'm at on this. A decent guitarplayer can get a good sound with just about any equipment, IMO.Buying a boutique amp doesn't insure good quality at all either. I spent some time at the Kendrik Amp factory in Austin, TX in the early 90's. Monkeys assembling crappy Fender knockoffs with radioshack parts, folks.
I've witnessed several performances where guitarists would use a Dumble overdrive special or steelstringer, John Mayer at the Grammy's comes to mind, sounded like a Peavey Bandit to me. Santana recently switched from Boogies to Dumble, I sure can't tell the difference. Played a gig recently with a fellow who used a Dr. Z, the treble just about killed my ears, our other guitarist used a Badcat in the studio last year and the tone wasn't happening until I gave him my WEM Dominator ($200 amp) to try, another friend owns a Victoria 4x10', the thing is a bit better than a Fender reissue but rattles at high volumes and nobody knows why or how to fix it, now to the flipside of the story, I already mentioned the WEM Dominator, another great amp is the Epiphone valvejunior ( supercheap), crate made a few really good ones and don't forget the Digital Hybrid amps ( Line 6, etc) . I saw Tom Anderson ( Dwight Yokam) using a $350 Epiphone Hollowbody and a Line 6 and he sounded spectacular. my favorite amps are regular Fenders from back in the day, they always sound good. Boutique amps are attractive to people who like to blame it on the gear.
Just my 2 cents

I have no idea what Dumble's are, but since Mesa Boogie were the first "boutique" amp company to become successful from the late 70's, I don't understand this comparison. You mean all boutique amps are alike?


I don't care about that amp, I want to know about their 35W combo tube amp the Victorilux. That amp would be heaven on earth for the likes of Keith Richards, Joe Walsh (when he cared before he joined the devil (Eagles)), and Peter Green.




Now this is useful information. I will pass it along. :thumbsup:

[QUOTE=yeti;800070]okay, so we're discussing boutique amps. here's where I'm at on this. A decent guitarplayer can get a good sound with just about any equipment, IMO.Buying a boutique amp doesn't insure good quality at all either.

As we are all obviously Greeny fans this is of course not an issue of contention. We can all agree that the most essential ingredient for a good tone is actually being able to play.
But ask me what i would prefer, tube or solid state and i would always choose tube. One thing about tubes i find is there is no hiding on them. What i mean by that is the sound can be quite exposing sometimes the clarity of it, as it really does react to what u put in IMO.
Boutique amps can be bought much cheaper than what most people think, just need to look around for independent makers. The boss of my band makes them here is his site
http://www.beteramp.com/

The Tiny Tour
 

Yes it wold be great if they filmed and recorded the five concerts. At one point Mike Dodd said - that was very appropriately - following 'Dance On' - that they had recorded and listened to the first show in Leffingen in the band car on the way to Amsterdam, and said that it was like a sixties revival for them

Wouter thanks for the set list! But to me it was like they didn't quite follow it, especially at the end. I am looking forward to see your impressions of the concert. I was with two friends who don't know anything whatsoever about PG (or music for that matter), so it would be nice to get another opinion from someone who is actually knowledgeable about PG when you get the time.

For those who asked about guitar and equipment (which I don't know so much about) - I think he played a blue stratocaster and used a funny little chubby almost "retro design" amp that I have never seen before (please don't laugh at me for this description)!

I wish some 'reviews' from Leffingen, Tillbourg, Hamburg and the 66 concert in ? will appear here soon.

Ms Moose

Well, as for following the setlist, they turned Stranger Blues and Off The Hook around, but that's all.

Sorry I missed you at the show, don't know what you look like. I was standing in the middle at the right of the hall, just behind the old fireplace. That gave me the opportunity not to have anybody in front of me and thus interfering with the music getting to the microphone. I wore my GREENY T-shirt.

As for the show, during the show I felt Peter had been much better as a vocalist as well as a guitar player during his Splinter Group period. Now that I've listened to it again, I'm not as critical anymore. However, I still feel that the Splinter Group was much better at supporting Peter as well as taking lead. Mike Dodd's voice is not as powerfull as Nigel Watson's. Also he did not do any lead guitar. When he made a false attempt to the second verse of Off The Hook, he did not just proceed, making the band having to follow him. He actually apologized, which he did quite often, saying it was only their second gig. This is IMO rather amateuristic. I mean, who in a regular audience would ever notice???

The next day I walked around in Amsterdam and suddenly Peter end Mike crossed my path. Although still wearing my GREENY T-shirt I did not have the nerve to speak to him. I was afraid he might ask me what I thought of the show. I'd hate to have to lie, or to have to tell him (and Mike) what I really thought of it at the time.

Anyway.... I have my recording ready. Just wondering how to get it to you all. I don't know how to transform to a torrent file and upload.
Anybdy got any suggestions?

Hi Wouter, Register at, for example

http://www.thetradersden.org

There's a FAQ there on how to seed files and create a bittorrent. There's some learning and work involved especially if it's your first time but not overly complicated. Looking forward to hear the show!

Bjorn

"Mike Dodd's voice is not as powerfull as Nigel Watson's. Also he did not do any lead guitar."

That sounds like good news to me :)

And Albert ross sounded like good news too!