East and West are two concerts which took place in London in the middle of 2019 and are full length free improvisation jazz.
Artwork by Vincent De Boer.
Musicians
Emre Ramazanoglu: Drums
Idris Rahman: Saxophone
Leon Brichard: Bass
Tamar Osborn: Saxophone (on East Part 1,2,3)
Satin Singh: Percussion (on West Part 1,2,3)
Irish fiddle player Martin Hayes is a long term favourite of mine, particularly when he pairs with guitarist Dennis Cahill and this was long before the incarnation of The Gloaming. I love the sensitivity to the soul of the music, rather than excessive display, which seems a characteristic of Hayes’ County Clare tradition of music making. But something extra seems to happen when these players perform live (true for The Gloaming, too) and a smidgeon more life and vivacity seems to enter the playing. A great example of this is the CD Live in Seattle:
The standout is track 2, which over nearly half an hour runs through 11 tunes, starting very slowly and with great feeling and gradually building in excitement and energy to a finale with an Irish traditional take on Pachelbel’s Canon. No wonder they get such enthusiastic applause at the conclusion.
Amazing “One Mic recording” . This is very much live. No possibility of fixing a mistake since it is a One Microphone recording. and the sound quality is incredible. FEENBROTHERS Play DAVE BRUBECK
On this recording the audience is rather more present than on our other live recordings from Studio 2. We prefer not to have more than 80 people present in the studio.
That number leaves us room to move around, change a cable or a microphone if needed, reposition the musicians if needed and so forth.
But as fate would have it, the computer system keeping count of the tickets sold for the concert, had some kind of a breakdown so instead of 80 tickets, 110 were sold.
Extra seats were brought in, so the audience ended up being very close to the band, creating a very lively atmosphere.
And as Frans noticed during the extended applause following the end of the concert; “Look at the phase meter, it’s practically straight in the middle, a phase coherent applaus!”.
There is a lot of live Bowie stuff out there, especially in recent years but this is definitely my favourite. Recorded in Vancouver and captured on VHS/DVD and subsequently released on CD, this is Bowie at his peak belting out the hits with a fantastic band.
I just saw him live once, at Slane Castle outside Dublin on the Glass Spider tour. I just remember it was very disappointing and a bit silly. I would have loved to see the 83 tour. Oh well.
@Pete_the_painter@LSLFAN - I saw him on that tour as well, at the old Wembley Stadium. My brother and I walked out halfway through in disgust, and went for a curry instead. Fortunately I saw him a number of times – 1983, 1990, 1997, 2002, 2003 – so I did get to see better gigs than that atrocity. The tour I wished I’d have seen him on was the Isolar tour of 1976 in support of Station To Station.
I saw Iggy on the 1977 tour with Bowie and the Sales brothers at the Rainbow. It was excellent. Can’t find any record of him at Wembley that year?
Saw him again around that time (not sure of the lineup) at a small venue in Camden, though memories of that are vague…I think band and audience were somewhat the worse for wear…
Hi @Nick.Lees - I was talking about Bowie at Wembley Stadium in 1987 - perhaps his lowest point (apart from the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in '92 and that dreadful duet with Jagger at Live Aid)