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



I thought he canceled due to sickness,  which seems believable given his
weakness for Canadian cigarettes.
On May 7, 2013 4:35 PM, "leif joley" <leifjoley@hotmail.com> wrote:

> 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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