gardenque wrote:
Quote:
A day or two before the concert, the band cancelled and Ten Years After was subbed in as headliners. Not a bad tradeoff. I got to see Alvin Lee and the band at the height of their popularity. But....it was still disappointing.
I saw Alvin Lee at a concert to celebrate the electric guitar. It also featured Leslie West, Steve Howe and loads of others. I'm afraid it only seemed to reinforce my opinion of Alvin "Look how many notes I can play in ten seconds" Lee. Sometimes these guys should maybe just slow down some.
There's apparently an organisation that's campaigning to play all classical music at half speed, so that the finer points can be appreciated. The problem is, apparently, that classical musicians are trained to play like virtuosos - i.e. fast - so they
always do. Hmm - do I see some parallels here?
Alvin Lee does like to play fast....and he did that night. I totally get what you're saying and I don't really disagree. However, back in 1970 ( being only 16 ), I was digging the fast playing. Plus....Leo Lyons bouncing up and down through the whole show kind of made it work! I do remember that during "I'm going home"....Lee was playing so fast, it was actually a bit sloppy.
Alvin Lee made a great album with Mylon Lefevre which I used to listen to a lot back in the 70s. Very laid back compared to Ten Years After....although Lee still plays fast on most of his leads.
Here's a sample from that record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4YMmSvDz9w