[Gig] Duke Special at the Thekla
Feb. 15th, 2007 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulroWow. That was one of the best gigs I've ever been to. I kind of figured it would be very good after seeing his performance on Joolz Holland, and the album, while full of lovely songs, feels as if something is being held back all the way through.
The band was a Duke Special on piano, a percussionist (one of the biggest, yet oddly not loud drum kits I've ever seen), guitar/bassist, and a guy who played clarinet, sax and occasional keyboards. What can I say, I get a kick out the clarinet solos.
They did pretty well all the songs from the current album, and a few from the earlier singles (now collected on a full length CD, which is sold out everywhere). He's not only a more than competent pianist with a beautiful voice, he's a very charismatic showman. The venue was a boat and they opened with a ballad that had lots of allusions to boats, and sinking, to which he did appropriate startled looks and eye-rolls and it was more than a little funny. The sound was really good - I was very close to the speaker and I can still hear. Maybe it's because the gig was largely acoustic.
They closed with a stonking rendition of Salvation tambourine, and for the encore came into the audience with an accordian, tin whistle, violin and drum and played a song about boats and sinking, and had the whole crowd sing along. At that point I discovered that he's only small - I was wearing flats and I'm definitely taller.
His really strong northern Irish accent is only a little more pronounced live than on CD. For the non-Brits among you, this is probably not the Irish accent you're thinking of. Go find some news clips of Ian Paisley or Gerry Adams. I speak several languages and I didn't know you could do that to vowels until I met people from Belfast.
If you have a chance, you should definitely go see this show. Most of the remaining UK dates are sold out, and if you want to see them in Ireland you have to go to some really obscure places like Waterford, but they're on the Continent in March and none of those are sold out yet...
He not only puts out singles on vinyl, they are 78s!!! How cool is that, but I have two turntables and neither plays 78s. That turns out not to be a problem - there's two singles - the A side is on 78, the B side on one is 45 and 33 on the other, and the A side song is on the playable side. Sadly, I only had enough cash on me for one.
The website is here.
And this has been one of my least coherent gig reviews ever, for which I apologise. I must be more articulate when I've had less fun, or something to that effect.
The band was a Duke Special on piano, a percussionist (one of the biggest, yet oddly not loud drum kits I've ever seen), guitar/bassist, and a guy who played clarinet, sax and occasional keyboards. What can I say, I get a kick out the clarinet solos.
They did pretty well all the songs from the current album, and a few from the earlier singles (now collected on a full length CD, which is sold out everywhere). He's not only a more than competent pianist with a beautiful voice, he's a very charismatic showman. The venue was a boat and they opened with a ballad that had lots of allusions to boats, and sinking, to which he did appropriate startled looks and eye-rolls and it was more than a little funny. The sound was really good - I was very close to the speaker and I can still hear. Maybe it's because the gig was largely acoustic.
They closed with a stonking rendition of Salvation tambourine, and for the encore came into the audience with an accordian, tin whistle, violin and drum and played a song about boats and sinking, and had the whole crowd sing along. At that point I discovered that he's only small - I was wearing flats and I'm definitely taller.
His really strong northern Irish accent is only a little more pronounced live than on CD. For the non-Brits among you, this is probably not the Irish accent you're thinking of. Go find some news clips of Ian Paisley or Gerry Adams. I speak several languages and I didn't know you could do that to vowels until I met people from Belfast.
If you have a chance, you should definitely go see this show. Most of the remaining UK dates are sold out, and if you want to see them in Ireland you have to go to some really obscure places like Waterford, but they're on the Continent in March and none of those are sold out yet...
He not only puts out singles on vinyl, they are 78s!!! How cool is that, but I have two turntables and neither plays 78s. That turns out not to be a problem - there's two singles - the A side is on 78, the B side on one is 45 and 33 on the other, and the A side song is on the playable side. Sadly, I only had enough cash on me for one.
The website is here.
And this has been one of my least coherent gig reviews ever, for which I apologise. I must be more articulate when I've had less fun, or something to that effect.
