RE: (TV) Tom and UFO's/SciFi/Guitar skills

[leif joley <leifjoley@hotmail.com>]

Re Bob's: > - The one time I saw Tom live was solo acoustic in> Vancouver BC,
1990, & was it largely a disappointment. His acoustic playing
> seemed boring & less accomplished to my ears than his electric.

I was far from disappointed after the performances in Lund and Copenhagen,
since they displayed a side of his personality that probably noone was aware
of until then. But those evenings were not especially memorable for the guitar
playing, since his accompaniment was quite pedestrian. They were memorable
because he reinvented himself as a trubadour. Not a bad thing, after all. Many
years later, I got to see Richard Thompson up-close on one of his acoustic
shows. These two guitarist have sometimes been compared, but as solo
performers, the difference was enormous. Thompson's technique was truly
frightening, and to be able to play like that at the same time as he sang --
absolutely unbelievable. In such a context, an acoustic show, there's no way
Verlaine can match Thompson.
Frankly, I sometimes wonder how good a guitarist Tom Verlaine really is.
Apparently, he can play the best solos known to mankind (at least in recording
studios; I'm not so sure about live shows -- I've seen him about ten times,
and yes, he *makes* mistakes when playing live, although he's been very good
every time), and the instrumental albums (not least the DVD of "Music for
Films") are throughout enjoyable. But it's obvious that Verlaine's playing
need a strong backup orchestra to really flourish.
Which sort of brings me back to the Krakow fiasco 2011, when I traveled all
the way to southern Poland only to realise that Verlaine had cancelled his
appearance at the Steve Reich event. When I then saw and heard Adrian Utley
from Portishead play the *very* complicated piece of music Verlaine was
supposed to perform, I couldn't escape the feeling that Verlaine had signed on
to the event because it seemed like a good thing to share the stage with
someone like Reich, but then backed out because he got cold feet when he
realised that he simply hadn't the ability to play music like that. Utley
played the whole thing from sheets, and it was such a difficult piece of work
that I find it unbelievable that Utley could replace Verlaine with short
notice, without extensive rehearsals. This is a very interesting conspiracy
theory, if I may say so myself. Anyway: Can Verlaine read a score at all? I
don't know, but something tells me not. He's a genius improvisor at his
instrument, but he's only human and he's got his limitations, even as a genius
instrumentalist.
Leif J, Sweden
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