Okay, so I'm late with this.
I'm late with a lot of things. I just take that as one of the hallmarks of creativity that abound in my life. Yep, I'm creative. That's my excuse for all of my assorted shortcomings in the more traditionally accepted fields of personal achievement.
Moving on...
Two weekends ago I went to see G-Love and Special Sauce at the Roxy here in Atlanta with my friend Jorge.
Jorge is a huge fan of G-Love. Me? Not so much. At least not before this concert. Still, Jorge is my very good friend and also my Jiu-Jitsu instructor, so what was I to do? How do you say no to a guy who can choke you seventeen different ways without your consent? I don't know either, so off to the concert I went.
Jorge and I arrived a bit late, as is our wont, and so we ended up sitting in the balcony. I didn't know the Roxy had a balcony, but I'll definitely be watching future shows from up above. The seats were great and the sound was incredible.
So, without benefit of opening act, out walked the esteemed G-Love.
Jorge was suspicious, because the drum kit was bigger than normal (and who doesn't get nervous around a guy with an oversize drum kit?) and the fact that there was a keyboard setup on stage. These misgivings were soon forgotten.
Without going into every little detail about the set and the performance, allow me to say right now that G-Love is about 1000 times better live than he is on his albums. That annoying, frat-boy suburbanite voice seems altogether normal in person, and the musicianship is tight.
On that note, allow me to say a little something about G-Love's band. The Special sauce consisted of a bassist, a drummer, and a keyboard player. The bassist was heavyset, wearing a snug t-shirt and sporting a skullet, and looking for all the world like either a veteran roadie or a homeless guy. The drummer was the spitting image of Ari Shaffir, and the keyboard player looked something like a cross between Fred Durst and Corky of "Corky and the Juice Pigs." I guess I should just say that this band was picked for skill.
G-Love performed about half of his best known songs and filled the remainder of his 2.5 hour show with various blues songs, covers, and new material. As I said before, I was not the biggest G-Love fan going into this show, but all of that changed as soon as I heard G-Love start playing his guitar.
Simply put, the man can play. Damn, can he play.
Never in my life had I seen someone dance while singing and playing a complicated riff on an acoustic guitar while playing harmonica notes between lyrics. Never before had I seen a thirty-something white kid from Philly play blues guitar like a homeless black man from New Orleans named something like "Ol' Crippled Benny." Never before have I seen anyone remove the mike in the middle of a song and use it as a slide while bending notes on a guitar that would make a nun think twice about her vows of celibacy.
If I haven't made it clear, the boy can flat-out play the hell out of a guitar.
Maybe my perception was enhanced by the "special cigarettes" so popular among the crowd, but I don't think so. Maybe I was influenced by Jorge, but again, I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I entered a skeptic, and left a believer. Hallelujah! I have found G-Love!
If you get a chance to see this show, go see it. You'll thank me later.
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