[Slowhand] Allman Brothers Beacon, Leslie West

[joeyjay at att.net]

Slowhanders,

Speaking of the Allman Brothers, here's a memo I received today.....thought I'd share....

Jay


Thought you'd enjoy this. Also note that they did Layla last night. 
The rumor of Leslie West's appearance has permeated the crowd, so it is only a mild surprise when he is set up center stage for set two. 

However, Corky Laing's presence on Jaimoe's kit (Laing being West's crony from Mountain, one of the archetype power trios providing the blue print for the original Gov't Mule) is news. The band eases into "Summertime," the Gershwin tune from Porgy and Bess that some may remember from Janis Joplin's soulful version; this arrangement evokes Joplin's. West is all over it, with a stinging, buzzing tone and a take-no-prisoners attack, ratcheting up the energy level two notches from set one. Warren takes the ball, finds the pain in the song, milks it like a tongue on a toothache, then transforms it from pain into something good. Warren and Leslie are firmly camped out in the big, loud, dumb happy sludge place; with Leslie West on stage, you wouldn't have it any other way. Derek steps forward, changes up, plays some ethereal gloomy slide, yielding to West. Derek is the blue angel, to the two devils on his left. Suddenly Derek is in that hi-toned, fast easy blue place. West turns his
  head 
up, looks at Derek, responds to what he hears , and the guitar guys in the back of the hall whoop it up as West lets loose.

Next, "Born Under a Bad Sign." Warren and West trade vocals, each singing a verse. The band has morphed into a lumbering dinosaur-a very deft dinosaur. West stings on a blues solo, Warren picks it up, then they take it down with a stomp for Derek. As Derek works his spells, West walks over to him, right up to him, in his face like he's observing a specimen in the wild, like he's never seen one of these before. Then he engages, beginning to play with Derek as he steps back. Then Derek and West do the mind meld, meshing and flailing at each other, pulled forward by a sheer powerful magnetism leading back into the song's riff and close. Whew.