Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton performed in the first of their two shows at Madison Square Garden. The musicians performed together at the end of the concert, with Steve Gadd on drums.
At 10:30 on Thursday night, the Eric Clapton-Jeff Beck concert at Madison Square Garden woke up. After playing individual sets, the guitarists faced each other on stage for a final stretch.
They took their poses with guitars: Mr. Beck hunched and leaning on his back foot, Mr. Clapton straight as a pin. Mr. Beck started spiking and blenderizing his phrases, folding a lot of business with glass slide and whammy bar into the depth of his sound; he put flash turns and hesitations in his arpeggios and melodic improvisations, whizzing them past you in small servings without overloading the whole. His solo sounded like a harmonica and moved like a rabbit. Naturally this energized Mr. Clapton, and naturally they competed a little.
It wasnt junkyard-dog action, but it sufficed, because until then the concert had been grim.
Heroes during British blues-rocks heroic age in 1965, Mr. Beck replaced Mr. Clapton in the Yardbirds the pair has a history of sidelong glances, but not really one of true collaboration. Theyve joined each other on stages now and then, but havent worked together for any length, and the shows at the Garden Thursday was the first of two are the second stop of a four-city tour. Mr. Beck has new material to perform, conceptual and rehearsed, including accompaniment by a 12-piece orchestra; Mr. Clapton has a back catalog, blues standards and his low-wattage, high-precision style. And they have each other.
As an orchestral, dramatic set-piece, Mr. Beck played the Beatles A Day in the Life, with his guitar as the vocal melody. He also played some music from his coming orchestral album, Emotion and Commotion (Atco) (including Puccinis aria Nessun Dorma and a version of Jeff Buckleys Corpus Christi Carol); throughout, he used combinations of slide and volume pedal, making vocalizations amid strange slow-motion ballads that might have been beautiful in sparer settings. This was careful, gloppy music: not the eloquent, volatile Jeff Beck of his recent live DVD, Performing This Week, recorded in the London club Ronnie Scotts. It would have been nice to see that Jeff Beck.
At 10:30 on Thursday night, the Eric Clapton-Jeff Beck concert at Madison Square Garden woke up. After playing individual sets, the guitarists faced each other on stage for a final stretch.
They took their poses with guitars: Mr. Beck hunched and leaning on his back foot, Mr. Clapton straight as a pin. Mr. Beck started spiking and blenderizing his phrases, folding a lot of business with glass slide and whammy bar into the depth of his sound; he put flash turns and hesitations in his arpeggios and melodic improvisations, whizzing them past you in small servings without overloading the whole. His solo sounded like a harmonica and moved like a rabbit. Naturally this energized Mr. Clapton, and naturally they competed a little.
It wasnt junkyard-dog action, but it sufficed, because until then the concert had been grim.
Heroes during British blues-rocks heroic age in 1965, Mr. Beck replaced Mr. Clapton in the Yardbirds the pair has a history of sidelong glances, but not really one of true collaboration. Theyve joined each other on stages now and then, but havent worked together for any length, and the shows at the Garden Thursday was the first of two are the second stop of a four-city tour. Mr. Beck has new material to perform, conceptual and rehearsed, including accompaniment by a 12-piece orchestra; Mr. Clapton has a back catalog, blues standards and his low-wattage, high-precision style. And they have each other.
As an orchestral, dramatic set-piece, Mr. Beck played the Beatles A Day in the Life, with his guitar as the vocal melody. He also played some music from his coming orchestral album, Emotion and Commotion (Atco) (including Puccinis aria Nessun Dorma and a version of Jeff Buckleys Corpus Christi Carol); throughout, he used combinations of slide and volume pedal, making vocalizations amid strange slow-motion ballads that might have been beautiful in sparer settings. This was careful, gloppy music: not the eloquent, volatile Jeff Beck of his recent live DVD, Performing This Week, recorded in the London club Ronnie Scotts. It would have been nice to see that Jeff Beck.
