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Posted by David on January 30, 2000 at 00:30:25:
In Reply to: Review of Mick Taylor show in SF posted by Mr. Ventilator on January 29, 2000 at 14:05:06:
I’ve posted some of my comments at the micktaylor.com site, and have pasted them in down at the bottom of this message. If you haven’t been there before, in their tour archives they still have the reviews from last year’s shows, and lots of other great content. The concert reviews written by other guitarists are particularly interesting.
I was standing near the entrance when Mick walked in last night. He stopped to say something to someone from the staff, so for a while I was actually about 3 or 4 feet away from him, as he was looking in my direction. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything to say; I probably should’ve at least said “Hello, Mr. Taylor”.
Some of your comments echoed what I wrote here in a number of messages early last year, when I posted for a while using the handle “Hard Knox and Durty Sox”. Particularly that he’s a much better guitarist and overall musician now than he was back then, and that he and the Stones weren’t a good fit anymore, if they ever were.
His current album “A Stone’s Throw” has been out in Europe since early last year, and will finally be released in this country next month. I bought my copy of the album a long time ago at Streetlight Records in SF – occasionally they and Amoeba Records have had copies that were available at used-CD prices. I recall at least 5 songs from that album that Mick played last night.
As for his relative lack of commercial success since 1975, just as it is with many jazz musicians, oftentimes the musicians with the greatest skill don’t achieve the greatest fame and fortune. Some of that is due to luck, and some to whether a particular artist’s music has appeal to a mass audience.
The following is what I posted at the other site:
I enjoyed it a lot more than the show I attended at Mick’s Lounge last year, most likely because this time I was just a few feet away from the stage and could see and hear a lot better - it was fascinating to watch Mick’s hands during his solos. If they recorded the show, it would be great to hear it again as an official release, then I could confirm for myself whether Mick’s playing was truly that amazing, or if my perceptions were enhanced extraordinarily by my proximity to the stage. I’ve got a number of his previous live recordings, but what I heard last night in the fluidity of his playing, his timing, and the variety of tones he got both with and without the slide, were all awesome.
The high points for me were “Blind Willy McTell”, and the encores of “Red House” and the CYHMK jam. The only song in the set that caused my attention to waver a bit was “Goin’ South”. I did get a little choked up at the end of CYHMK, as I briefly got a flash of how many years have passed, and how great the Stones were back then.
I’ve wondered why Mick has drawn from a relatively small pool of songs for his live performances over the past decade-plus. For me, he wouldn’t necessarily have to use a lot of Stones material; I’d love to hear “Spanish/A Minor”, and he would probably do a great job with a few other Dylan songs. If there was one Stones tune I would most want to hear him play live, it would have to be “Gimme Shelter” – he wouldn’t even have to do the vocal part, to hear him do an instrumental version, e.g. from the Stones boot “Dallas Rehearsals”, and expanding upon it, could be an incredible thrill.
I would definitely go to see him every time he comes back to SF in the future. In fact,
I hope we don’t have to wait again until next year. David