Martin Longley enjoys a night with a guitar great.
Jeff Beck, Symphony Hall
When Jeff Beck’s quartet took to the stage, they were sounding as brain-pulping as Nine Inch Nails, pushing out an edifice of industrial funk groove. With his freshly-died dark locks and black glam matador outfit, Beck didn’t exactly look like he was on the brink of becoming a septuagenarian. The youthfulness is in his body language too, and in his sense of sonic adventure.
There was the immediate impression that Beck’s particularly excited about his current band, and filled with enthusiasm for the current tour. This wasn’t a misty glide through past glories; Beck was more concerned with cranking his guitar up and delivering a wall of deftly-sculpted, aggressively distorted, unpredictably structured solos.
He’s always been a shadowy figure, moving easily between the camps of rock, blues, jazz, funk and pop, and this 105 minute set maintained a strong sense of purpose throughout. It’s an instinctive vibration that passes through an audience. The time swooped past without any diversions from our full attention. Beck was palpably wired up for communication, giving the impression that he was still caught up by improvisation, still changing the content of his solos, night by night.
The music was delivered with a chunky volume level and a sound balance that lent a powerful weight to the proceedings. Beck’s axe had a smouldering upfront edge, whilst Rhonda Smith’s bass moved from full-bodied funk spread to frayed fuzz thrusting. She contributed vocals to a couple of songs, including Rollin’ & Tumblin’, one of the encores.
Drummer Jonathan Joseph was thundering expansively, favouring one of those massive rock-bombast kits, but still sensitively polyrhythmic at high-punch volume. Second guitarist Nicolas Meier’s place was less certain, as his parts often worked as a mushy filler, softly toned-down beside Beck, and often verging on synth-style washing. Presumably this was a deliberate tactic, to contrast with Beck’s more serrated edges. Towards the end of the gig, Meier stood to the side, and the band played as a power trio, which made this listener hanker after a more stripped down combo.
Most of the material was Beck’s own, but there were a few strategic cover versions interspersed, including Danny Boy, Hendrix’s Little Wing and A Day In The Life, by the Beatles, a tilted version that side-stepped what most acts would choose, apart from the Fall. Not many folks have dared to select this tune for a grapple.
Beck exudes a positive attitude, and appears to be a modest, easy-going kinda guy. Did he always pick with his thumb, even in the early years? Nowadays, he’s plucking like a bluesman, embellishing with his whammy bar, stepping on his big spread of effects pedals, but not overdoing it: much of the sonic bending is as a result of his own fingering techniques. It’s not all trebly contorting, as Beck employs hard riffs as a foundation, often clipped into unexpected structures.
Self-confessed warm-up act Mike Sanchez (he of The Big Town Playboys) played a half-hour solo set, abusing his tiny electric piano, as the blues and rock’n’roll numbers got shorter as he hurtled towards his time-limit, songs compressed into a virtual medley of classics. We could sympathise with his urge to cram in as many favourites as possible, but the set started to sound like a demonstration of his prowess rather than a considered selection of tunes. A touch too much for the short attention-span folks, but tantalising nevertheless, a taster for several of Sanchez’s upcoming full-band gigs around the region.
