Any news about the Berlin concert?
 

Well - just a question, really.....Did anyone here attend?........Manfred?:]

Ms Moose

This is a post from the Blindman's Blues Forum concerning the Hannover concert:



On Thursday night we saw Peter Green & Friends live in the Bluesgarage Hannover, Germany. I always wanted to see him as he´s one of my favourite guitar greats. I knew that I couldn´t expect too much, but it turned out to be some of the saddest things I´ve ever witnessed. There he sat heavily signed with the traces of time, happily smiling when he played something right or when he could follow a song. What he had, the special thing in every single note he played which every great guitarist has, is now nearly completely gone. From time to time he obviously was absent. The band did everything to comfort and to follow him and to turn things into a musical correct way. As I said - it really was bitter.
A friend of ours who knows him from the past talked to him later and said it took him some time to make clear what he was talking about. His remembrance has big gaps and he has to have quite a lot medical treatment. Our friend who is an old hippie said he sat there the whole evening trying to send good vibes to the stage to help this guy whom he always admired to get through the evening.
In some way I´m glad that I saw one of my personal heroes, in another way I´m really, really sad ´cause this went straight to the heart :(


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It would be nice if someone here sees him this month, who also saw him in February. I would like to read about any differences or not.

Now check out THESE clips from 11.06.2009! :thumbsup:
"Oh Well":]
"Oh Pretty Woman":]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjnQAdfsB08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ4dQ...eature=related

Thanks Dansven!
 

Even though the posters opinion about the Hannover concert claimed not to expect much, he did just that. I don't see anything wrong with those two Youtube performances from the 11th. Now I know Green is using a Vox combo amp.


I have to give kudo's to the organ solo for "Absolutely Sweet Marie".

Thanks for posting the links to those clips, dansven!

Cheers for the Youtube clips.
It's good to hear Peter play 'Oh Well' again.....must be a few years since we last heard that played live.

Judging by the youtube clip the blues number especially he still got his special touch in my opnion. Ok he will never be 60´s peter green but still he has something that sets him apart from any old blues bar player....he got the touch man oh yeh!!!!:blob1:

"Oh Pretty Woman" is the best of the four songs by far, you can tell Green is getting into it. I thought I read that Peter would never play "Oh Well" again because he's not in that place anymore. Did he ever play it during his first comeback ('77-'84)? Nevertheless I find that a breakthrough.

You're welcome, folks! (I only hope the clips will last a while on youtube before the copyright people have them removed!!)
Imo youtube is excellent promotion for Peter's new band!


Two things strike me with this band project:

-Peter seems to be ENJOYING himself, compared to most of the SG gigs.

-Peter is the ONLY lead guitar player. And I'd rather have him doing what he does today, than some second guitarist doing backup and taking over when Peter's solos aren't "hot" enough. Thankfully, it seems like Mike Dodd has understood this! :D


slipkid: I think I have one or two bootlegs from the 80s with Peter doing Oh Well.
sharksfan2000: I'm sorry I didn't post that old article a while back of Peter talking about the Green/Kirwan instrumental project. Things have slowed down now, and I'll do it in the weekend!! ;)

The "reporter" is obviously not keyed in to the situation. Looks like spirited performances. Great "Oh well", surely better than the 80's versions (yes, Kolors playes it at most concerts from 82-85).

Thanks dansven about posting that article - no hurry though!

And I couldn't agree with you more about the differences between Peter and his new band vs. Splinter Group. You can see by his face how happy he is to be playing now....I didn't see that very often in the video of Splinter Group shows.

Based on the 4 songs in the YouTube videos, I'd have to say that the reviewer was at a different concert. Peter seems to be enjoying himself and he is playing quite well. The touch and tone are there. Of course, it's not like the 60s, duh, but who would expect it to be?
I hope there are more videos to come and perhaps a full audio version.

;)Yes, as I posted before the German mini tour started, Peter now is really enjoying his playing, this band is cleary good for him!!

Cheers,

Mario.

Deaf and Blindmans Blues Forum
 

Thanks a million for posting the clips from YouTube dansven after that very very sad review! Maybe the reviewer from Blindmans Blues Forum was deaf as well. On the film Peter Green seems even more alive and dynamic than on the february tour. Sometime - hopefully on a scandinavian tour in the autum - we might even see him standing up! ;)

Great that new stuff (blues to supplement the jazzy things) has been added to the repertoire.
I agree with slipkid and greenmanastrat that he also seems to be getting a bit more into 'bluesplaying' again in a more convincing way than with SG. "Oh Pretty Woman" expresses the empathy with the music that is so special to him.

Great to hear him play Oh Well again. I know the sound quality is not very good. Oh Well is a very structured piece originally, but on this YouTube clip it sounds more chaotic and uncoordinated - which I also like, even if it is not intended :lol:

I agree with you dansven - it is of great importance that PG is the only lead player now. First and foremost because it would be horrible to have to endure tedious "hot soloes" from somebody else. :eek: Thumbs up for Mike Dodd!

Oh yes - and great organ solo on "Sweet Marie".

Like the person on YouTube wrote: I wish I had been at that gig! And I hope these tours will be immortalized- filmed, recorded.

Ms Moose

For those interested, RealPlayer has feature that allows downloading of videos, albeit in their proprietary format. I was able to download the 2 PG videos.

Thanks for posting the link -

for someone who was always more reserved concerning the second "comeback" period, i.e. with The Splinter Group, I have to say that I was stunned by the beauty of 'Albatross'

What a great performance - this number has always held tremendous importance to Green, they played at almost every show from mid-1969 until his leaving, and he often did a little intro before playing it attempting to convey to the audience just what it meant to him.

What I found so great with this performance is that he was able to rework the arrangement and for me, make it more powerful - it now has a more muscular feel, the number soars higher and glides more effortlessly than the earlier versions - even those with the Splinter Group -

The difference is he is no longer attempting to imitate what once was - he is creating something new - the same as he did when he covered an old blues standard in his days with Fleetwood Mac - the idea was not to duplicate the song, but to put his own stamp on it, without losing what made the original worth covering to begin with -

A truly inspired performance

Fabulous, its seems a uninanmous verdict that Peter is in fine shape and enjoying his playing. We have video evidence to support this. Maybe the reviewer of the concert is a bit hard of hearing or something and was really judging the performance on the basis that Peter is sitting down :shrug: dont really get where they´re comin from.
Hope he comes to spain :blob2:

thanks to all, especially to dansven for the youtube links. oh pretty woman, his best albert k. ever. by far. so so much better than born under a bad sign from little dreamer. and oh well. geez i thought i'd never see the day.

comeback number 3! what about a modest live recording! geraint watkins! god bless mike dodd. he may not be an ace player but he loves peter green as much as we do.

anyone still think this is just a bar band? zero

And then there is also KeepVideo:
http://keepvid.com/
Enter the link, then copy the page to your desktop. That way you can always retrieve the program that enables you to save videos to your hard disk. You may need extra software to convert to AVI or mpg files.
Good luck.

I can't recall ever hearing Peter play on a Bob Dylan song before....:shrug: That's definitely a first!!

No, the same band did Dylan's "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" earlier this year. Again, Mike Dodd on vocals.

Frankfurt June 15, 2009, Batschkapp
 

Hi everybody,

yesterday I have been to the Frankfurt gig. As my only comparison would be the Splinter Group in spring 2003 there wer some surprises, most of them positive I have to say.

The gig took place in an old rock club with a capacity of may be 300 people. It was filled with about 200. A nameless (nobody introduced them) power trio played some covers in Hendrix, Cream style as warm up.

When Peter and the band entered the stage I first was surprised how good his voice sounded. Clear but raher low in the mix. No comparison to the mumbling of the Splinter gig. Towards the end of the concert, however, he got some problems with the voice which "broke" from time to time. The sound was good, every instrument could be clearly heard, although the keyboards wer a bit high and voice and rhythm guitar a bit low in the mix. Most of the concert Peter played a beautiful guitar looking like a Les Paul (Mike Dodd asked him "where did you get this guitar from?" and Greenie answered dryly: "From a guitar shop") . The playing was controlled, very concentrated and just beautiful, slightly jazzy tone... He really played lead and all the solos. And he never disappeared musically for some time unlike in the Splinter days.

I did not make notes as I wanted to enjoy the music so I can not provide a complete set list, but the following songs were played:

Blues don't change
Key to the highway
Sweet Marie (Dylan)
Long grey mare
Sitting in the rain (Mayall)
...
....
Oh well, morphing into Albatross
...
Stranger blues
Black magic woman
The thrill is gone
Rainy night in Georgia
The stumble

The middle section contained some songs I could not recognize, ranging from roots-rock to even gospel (not my favourites but may be my taste is too one-dimensional). Sitting in the rain (the old Mayall single with Green, McVie and Dunbar from 66) was a surprise. The voice fit very well to the song. Also Oh well plus Albatross worked very well. Oh well sounded very different than in the old days. Danny Kirwan's wild soloing is missing and Peter plays much more controlled. The nicest surprise was The Stumble as the final encore as I already missed this song.

The band played really well and tight. Mike Dodd continued to animate the audience (and Peter) but it was OK. He was the only one moving on stage, the others just playing their instruments. The visual impression would have been too static without that. The only annoying thing was that the sound man tried to crank up the volume during Stranger Blues destroying the good ballance of sound and producing some feed back.

We and I think most of the audience went home happy after more than one and a half hour of Greeny music even if the middle part of the set was a bit quiet.

On our way to the subway station we heard a young guy who also just left the club answering to some girls "I have just been to a 60 plus party!". No, it was not really like this. Maximum 50 plus...

Greetings from Germany
Roland

Thank you so much for posting this, RoJo! :)

Wow!! "Sitting In The Rain"?!?! :shocked:
I can imagine it must have been cool. It was also great to see "Long Grey Mare" appear at the concerts in February.

Do you know who's the singer on "Key To The Highway"?

I noticed that also on the videos posted, he seems to have gotten more range back into his voice, its sounding awesome from what i can tell.

I have listened to oh pretty woman a few times now and im really happy, love the way he gets inside the groove on his solo, its vintage peter green and its why hes the best british blues guitar player ever(:sorry: eric) pure emotion so natural!!!

And here are some clips from Belgium...

The Stumble and The Thrill Is Gone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS9g7O9rn5U

Stranger Blues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KSxj...eature=related

Thanks for spotting those new YouTube clips, dansven. Too bad they're so short and incomplete!

Anyone know the date & venue that these are from?

From the sign at the back of the stage (that shows a bit now and then) it seems to be from the 'Spirit of 66 'show in Veviers, Belgium, which was on the 27th of february.

Yes - thank you very much for spotting the YouTube clips!

I wonder if the band is making any film from the tour(s) - so that better quality will be available at a later date.

Ms Moose

Thanks for the ID on the location and date for those clips, Ms Moose!

I think it was Peter himself. I still have the "walking is too slow.." line in the back of my memory with Peters voice.

Thanks RoJo
 

Thank you RoJo, for your personal impressions from the Frankfurt concert. I was at the concert in Amsterdam in february, and I recognize a lot from your description. Also this undefined atmosphere or mood (stemmung?) of well-wishing or even love from the audience.

An absolutely new thing is Peter Green chatting and even smiling :woohoo: He seems relaxed and not worried about "mistakes".

Also it seems like some numbers are better than others for his voice now a days....maybe a three months tour would get the voice in shape...or make it disappear all together.....

Ms Moose

Yes, thanks for the heads-up. I think Peter's voice sounds pretty good. But standing up is always better than sitting down when singing, just like when playing a wind instrument. Wonder if has any ailments, or just prefer sitting down? Also, it's nice to see Mike Dodd interact with Peter - his role is obviously to act as support/encouragement, more importantly than playing.

Thanks again, RoJo! :)

Perhaps it's hip arthrosis that's setting in..? ;)

Also, I like that he's singing blues standards, rather than those originals by the SG members.

Mario! Why is he sitting down?
 

Yes you never know - he has the age for it. But maybe also being on the heavy side (in more than one sense).....I mean if ...."my legs are thin"...it might be arthritis of the knees?
Maybe we should start a new thread dedicated to health issues...then again NOT!

I agree with you dansven: blues standards anyday. They are made for him and his playing.

Ms Moose

Indeed!! :laugh:

Anyway, it was mentioned earlier in this thread that somebody had met Peter at the Hannover gig, and that he was on heavy medication..
From what I sees on these clips (given that he really is on medication), I'd say it's a very reasonable and successful treatment! :cool:

Yes the type of medicine that one can imagine PG has to take often gives weight problems and unfortunately also sometimes heart trouble, so it has to be monitored very carefully. This is the "heavy medication" part of it, the good part is that it helps to keep voices and all that at bay. But we don't really know what he takes. According to Celmins he came off tranquilizers in the nineties, which is good.
Whatever PG takes or doesn't take he looks happier in those clips than he has in years, he plays music and this makes us all happy!

Ms Moose :woohoo:

Hi to all,

Has anyone managed to download the Youtube footage of Peter? I am a bit of a Computer Illiterate, but would love to get a copy. Can anyone help? Thanks a lot.

Cheers, Don