I went to see one of my lifelong guitar heroes last night who was playing live in dublin......the one and only john maclaughlin... and his latest band..the 4th dimension.....in all a 4 piece guitar,bass,keys,and drums..the keyboard player doubled up as a second drummer and traded licks with the drummer at the end of the show.......but john was on top form and for a guy into his 60's and could really still do the business...in two words...f****n' amazing....easily one of the best if not the best gig for musicianship i've ever been at....i know this sort of stuff isn't everyones cup of tea but they played for 90 mins and i can honestly say that i wasn't bored for 1... no disrespect but i've seen satriani live 3 times and vai once and wanted to go by halftime.....this gig and steely dan from '96 are in my top two at the moment......
there was a very strict policy on no snaps or and recordings of the gig..... and i didn't want to risk being thrown out...!!. a bit strange as a lot of artists like the you tube exposure to a bigger audience... anyway i read an interview with him a while back where he explained he was using some sort of sony processor for his guitar sound and they kept getting broken in transit and he had gone through i think he said 7 at that stage and they were getting rarer and more expensive so someone suggested loading the sounds onto an apple powerbook and bringing it on the airplane as hand luggage...how he did this i don't know,unless maybe sony or someone helped him out....he didn't go into detail but as far as i know thats what he uses with some sort of foot controller,he had a black godin guitar and apart from a sort of chorus sound with a bit of drive ,he kicked in a faint delay now and again....and i think a slight boost for solos ..or maybe the sound guy brought him up in the mix...sounded really good going through the rig.... i'll PM you soon,i'm going to try a little experiment with the XT pro and my regular rig on the next couple of gigs....i'll let you know how it pans out.....
Hey Franzoni - I saw John here in Canada last year and have to agree with you - just fabulous. I also saw Steely Dan - I think it was 2004 and that was great too (not to mention Fagen on his own in 2006).
John MacLaughlin and the 4th Dimension gig
Posted - 05/31/2008 : 09:33:30
....but john was on top form and for a guy into his 60's and could really still do the business...in two words...f****n' amazing..
..easily one of the best if not the best gig for musicianship i've ever been at....i know this sort of stuff isn't everyones cup of tea but they played for 90 mins and i can honestly say that i wasn't bored for 1... no disrespect but i've seen satriani live 3 times and vai once and wanted to go by halftime.....this gig and steely dan from '96 are in my top two at the moment......
