LOCATION: Peabody's, Cleveland, OH
LINEUP: Brian, Karin, Linford, Mike, Terri, Jack
REVIEW BY: Jeffrey L. Klaum
Warning... this is somewhat of a long review of lasts nites show...but i know you want to hear about it... Well well well...last nights show was incredible. I had my doubts and reservations (shame on me) on the new line up, but they were happily disproven. For me the highlights were as follows: The version of 'Faithfully Dangerous' i heard last night is in my opinion the way that song was intended. It was mind blowing. The version was a slow-whimsical-jazzy-blues-thing which got everyone moving immediately. Very cool. 'Gospel Number' gave me goosebumps through the whole thing. The backing vocal was tremendous, Terri makes a wonderful addition to this tune ( as well as the rest of the songs ). The vocals were the thing that set this tune off, pure power and soul. Of course 'Jacks Valentine' had everyone cheering for Linford. It was very nice hearing Brian and all the grooves he adds to all the songs, especially this one. He does this triplet thing on the ride which is way cool. For those of you who have not heard the new bass player be prepared. This guy plays a gangle of bass. Not to take away from Linfords stint as the bands bass player because i love the things he did with the bass. The new bass player was outstanding. He played mostly on this Warwick fretless bass that had tremendous warmth, tone and growl (very wooly). It reminded me of the bass on earlier Kate Bush stuff. His sound was definitly meant for this band. I look forward to hearing some recordings with him on bass. Terri Templeton has the voice of an angel. Her and Karin make a very good match. She also played violin but the house mix didn't pick it up very well. It will be very interesting to see how the vocals develope as the band gets more comfortable with each other. G. Jack Henderson did a great job adding to the spice of the band. I would not want to be in his position as far as having to fill those mighty big shoes left by Ric but i don't think he really has to. The band is taking the sound to a different level. And Jack seemed to really fit in nicely. The band closed the evening with a new song called 'Goodbye'. It was a very well constructed song with a ton of great elements, but i have to say that someone in the band has been listening to a little to much Beatles. All in all it was a great show and i look forward to hearing the band again after they get through the growing pains. I was quite pleased with the new line up. They didn't play alot of songs, but hey, they've only been playing together as a band for like a week now. Everyone in the crowd was shouting out tunes to play and Linfords eternal response was, "that's right, that's your job to keep saying why didn't they learn that one?"