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Bruce Cockburn played at 2009 Mississauga Festival

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My wife and I went to see Canada’s Bruce Cockburn play at the 2009 Mississauga Waterfront Festival and he was, as usual, out of this world! This guy plays solo acoustic guitar that sounds like he has a whole band behind him.

He is a WORLD CLASS GUITARIST!

The weather was great that day. Our seats, our lawn chairs that is, were fabulous! We were up as close as you could get. The view was unobstructed, until the late comers rushed to the front row! I hate when that happens.

His set that he played was great. A nice mixture of old and some stuff from his latest album titled Slice O Life.

I loved his, If a Tree Falls in the Forest.PLEASE turn down the volume before watching this one!

Below are some great pics my wife got at the show!

Bruce Cockburn Waterfront Festival Toronto 21

Bruce’s Chrome Dobro Guitar, Fender telecaster pickup(p/u) and a built in mic. Got it in 1990.

Bruce Cockburn Waterfront Festival Toronto 12

Bruce’s 12-string by Linda Manzer, side-mounted Fishman Prefix Pro, acoustic pre-amps with Matrix p/u’s and Audio-Technica internal mics.

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His main acoustic, 20 years old, extra deep body. Same p/u’s as above. Mic signal goes directly to the sound board. P/U’s run through pedals. In order Boss TU-2 tuner, Empress tremolo, Boss DD-5 delay, Line 6 MM4 and DL-4. The signal then goes through a rack-mounted Lexicon Alex reverb(for World of Wonders) and a Demeter tube DL.

Bruce Cockburn is a simply a modern day acoustic guitar god!





Cold Play – Shiver – Acoustic Version

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Coldplay, what a good band. They’ve been around for ages, tons of people I’ve met love ’em and their sound is great.

Most songs they play take a bit of time to tickle that musical funny bone in me. There is an exception with a song they did for BBC show in 2000. It was an unplugged version of their hit song Shiver.

This song has everything that I love in a song. For the first time in a while I actually listened to the word and they were, well nice. This is a big step for me because I NEVER pay attention to words in a song.

The second thing going for this creation is the chord progressions. The phrasing is fabulous. The chords are FULL SOUNDING , there are open strings ringing out for all to hear and it is not just a sappy love song full of simplistic guitar changes. The second guitar adds that extra filler that I look for in gauging for the perfect song!

The guitar player, Chris Martin, has created a song very worthy of figuring out. So much so, that I am going to give it a go when I’m done this post!

The reference that I will be using as a rough template for the song is this video that I found on Youtube!

I also want to apologize to my regular readers for not posting all that much the past little while. Sometimes you just have to step back for a while to re-energize the old batteries that will help bring a better perspective in the things that you love doing to make it that much better. Thank you!

Super Groups love them or hate them?

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When I was still a young and very impressionable guitarists, once in a while I’d hear of a collection of musicians, from different bands, that would get together to form this new thing called a Super Group. I could only imagine great tunes coming from these musically gifted artists. My first exposure to this new phenomenon was a Super Group called Asia.

I was not playing with Pylis at this point and I was just starting to pick up my axe again, finally! It was at this point in my journey that my renewal of love for playing and performing live came to a head. At this point I proceeded practicing like a mad man! I just needed an outlet to let go of all my pent up musical energy, so I got together this band.

These guys, Pinhead(keyboards), Domenic (drums), and this other guy that I can’t remember his name right now (bass player) wanted to play a show at Brantford’s BCI talent night, way back in the mid 80’s. Now this is where the Super Group Asia comes in.

Asia came at us with tons of hype. A line up that included guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Carl Palmer, keyboardist Geoff Downes and bassist/vocalist John Wetton was a real eye catcher. Their first big hit, the one we actually played at the show, was called Heat of the moment.

In hind site, the band and their material were ok at best. Not overly imaginative, but for the average listener at the time, it was fine. Most people were not fully aware of each of the bands members past works. They just recalled hearing the names of the bands and not what they, the guys in Asia as individuals, could bring to their musical tapestry.

Asia did in fact have several Top 10 singles and sales exceeding 7 million copies. Not bad for a so, so band. Why are these guys such a big seller … I’m not really sure. The only thing that comes to mind is ADVERTISING! So what about Super Groups from the past?

In the 1960s there was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Cream and Blind Faith. Not too bad at all I’d say. During the 1970s groups like Bad Company and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (these guys were just unreal). The 80s & 90s had super groups like The Firm, Power Station, A Perfect Circle and last but not least The Traveling Wilburys (I really wasn’t all that impressed with these guys in particular).

In today’s musical time line we have Velvet Revolver and Audioslave and just recently had Chicken Foot and Tinted Windows join the fold.

The question I have for all of you is, what do you think of the idea of The Super Group concept? Love them or hate them?

Keep on Jammin’

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