Leo Lyons' excitement and joy while playing is contagious. He's put on the years, for sure, but his energy level hasn't faded at all over the decades. Although technically Joe Gooch is the new front man for the band, I feel it's bass guitarist Lyons leading them in many aspects. His fingers literally flew over the bass strings without any effort at all as if the music came from deep inside him. I sat at a table near his end of the stage and I'm glad I did. His own personal performance was tremendous, full of vitality and taking the crowd into his own special love of performing live.
Original band members Ric Lee on drums and Chick Churchill on keyboards were a bit less noticeable from my point of view. Whether they shared Leo's sense of excitement, I couldn't tell. Their performances were fine, but I don't know if they were quite as really into it as Leo was.
Then there's Joe Gooch, the New Kid on the Block. Slim, rockin', new age, spiky-haired (with product), sunglasses-wearin', guitar-playin' Joe Gooch. I personally think he looks like CBS 2 (Manhattan) tech geek Brett Larsen (not a bad thing). The man seated next to me thought Ryan Seacrest. No! No! He's much too tall for that! But, can he rock? Can he roll? Can he fill Alvin Lee's big shoes? Hmmm ... good question. I think he'll eventually build shoes of his own with the band if they keep on working. In a way, he's a bit incongruous on a visual level with them due to the age difference — he's only 28 years old. On a talent level, he puts on a great show.
I was keeping notes of the set list in the dimly lighted club, but found that a few of them I wrote atop of others thus making them illegible. Oops. Due to that, I can't give you the exact song listings. They played a bunch of old original TYA songs, as well as most of the new material from the Ten Years After Now CD. Although I loved hearing some of their older hits during the show, it was some of their newer songs that got the crowd (and me) rocking and bopping our heads. "King of the Blues" was the first song of the new generation to really impact the crowd. Excellent! It pulled the crowd in and got us in the mood to hear ,not just the old, but the new. Songs I liked from the new CD came to life in the live performance, as well as a new song not on the CD - "Big Black 45."
Article comments
1 - Douglas Mays
WOW, Ten Years After 40 years later. The way you describe it, sounds good to me....Concert version of "Choo Choo Mama"? Rockin'
2 - Krisztina Fazekas
Hi, I think you got it right. I agree. Only that crapy photo doesn`t fit to the quality of your critic. So check out www.newyorkcool.com at 1 of April. You can find some good stuff there.
3 - Brigitte and Dave
Great concert review, couldn't have done better myself - as we host two of the best Ten Years After (Now) and Alvin Lee (Tribute) websites, we should know.
If we don't have this review on our website at the moment, we will be sure to add it this weekend for sure.
Nice to read someone being objective for a change, and who just likes good music, a good band and a great time -- that's what Ten Years After has always been about, right from the start!
Much respect from your host,
Brigitte and Dave
Germany / USA
Enjoy our work!!!