Holdsworth 12/10/09
17 February 2010That ol’ boy can dang sure play that geetar, tellyawut.
He was at Dan’s Silverleaf, which is a VERY small club up in Denton, about 30 minutes from my house.
Gear was interesting: his old white original Steinberger from the 80′s with Seymour Duncans in it, two Hughes and Keltner combos (they might have been Switchblades) and a table with three or four pedals that all had the same four switch configuration. I never could tell what these were. On the floor he had a volume pedal and a think a channel switch for the amps.
I’ve never seen him play before although I have heard him a few times. He’s so different as to be impossible to relate to what a traditional guitar player does. He plays like a horn player. Once you figure that out and kind of go with it, you can sort of understand it.
The band (Chad Wackerman and Jimmy Johnson) were equally awesome.
I still really crave more structure when I’m listening, and I know there’s some structure there somewhere, but my ears can’t find it. Still, seeing him live was worth it. His sound is much bigger in person than on his records, much warmer, and the drums and bass are huge sounding as well. His technique is really unorthodox – when you watch him, what’s coming out and the hand movements don’t line up, like Jeff Beck. He’s also not as dour an individual as his reputation would lead you to believe.
The whole band stuck around for autographs, but since I was feeling pretty crappy (bad cold) I left as soon as the set was over. It would’ve been interesting to chat with Allan for a bit.
I saw a LOT of guitarists in the crowd.
Overall I’d give it 4 stars out of 5.
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on February 17th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
sounds like a cool night!
on February 18th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Hi Perry – yeah, it was definitely worth seeing! I’d go again. Seeing someone like Holdsworth in a small venue like Dan’s is too good an opportunity to pass up.