MusicHead

I’m not sure when I first heard Gary Clark, Jr. His first major release, BLAK AND BLU, came out in 2012. However, I’m all but certain the first track I ever heard of his was from GARY CLARK JR. LIVE (2014). I instantly knew what we had with him. I hadn’t heard guitar playing like that from a contemporary artist in many years. Over the last decade I kept paying attention and on February 20, I, with my spouse, finally had the chance to see him.

The show was at Brooklyn Bowl on the Linq Promenade in Las Vegas. This is the only mid-sized concert venue we know of that isn’t attached to a casino. Although it is adjacent to the Flamingo and the Linq on The Strip. We’ve been to this venue a number of times, now, and we like it a lot. It’s actually a working bowling alley with a concert venue in the middle of two sets of lanes, but in our experience the lanes aren’t operating when artists are performing.

Grace, doesn’t sing, but she surrounds herself with a cadre of finely talented musicians to support her. In this photo you can see her 2nd guitar player, bassist, and singing accompanyist. The band also featured a drummer/lead singer and a keyboardist.

Being largely unknown to me I didn’t know what to expect. Also, being native St. Louisan expats in Las Vegas, one of our greatest frustrations is the lack of a discernible music scene here and the inability to go see quality blues bands on any given night of the week. What Grace and her band provided us was exactly what we have been missing. They were dynamic, free, soulful, and talented. They pulled off Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” and ended with a crowd pleasing rendition of P-funk’s “Give Up the Funk.” They warmed the cold cockles of our St. Louis hearts. Seek her out if you haven’t already. She’s well worth your time.

One think I dislike about concerts is the amount of lag time in between acts. You can see all the instruments are set up before the crowd arrives, why, then does it take 45 minutes for the headliner to come out after the opener? What the hell?

Fortunately, Gary and his band didn’t do this to us. I didn’t time it but there was probably the acceptable 15-20 minutes between Grace’s band leaving the stage and Gary’s coming on. He’s promoting his latest record, JPEG RAW. I’d only listened through it once, and Spouse hadn’t heard it at all, so we weren’t familiar with a large portion of the music. Furthermore, as you can see from the photos, we were very close to the stage and off to the side. As such, either as a function of our location or the quality of the front of house mix, we could barely hear, much less understand, the vocals. Instead, we concentrated on the overall musical experience.

Gary was travelling with a 7-piece band: bass, drums, 3 backup singers, keys, and a 2nd guitarist. You can see from the photo at the top of the post that the singers were placed up-stage center and the drummer was up-stage right, a configuration we don’t remember ever seeing before. I do love that he wanted to feature his singers in this way. However, also, as you can see from the photo, from our perspective, we could see the drums, but not the drummer. I couldn’t tell you the age, race, or gender of the drummer, as we never saw them.

Concentrating on the music, rather than listening to familiar favorites, allowed us to focus in and be “in” the music with no expectations. This was a fine change from most concerts we go to. Again, as native St. Louisans with a deep appreciation for blues music, we were very happy with everyone’s contributions. The band was on it. Gary seemed to be having a good time. And the group put on a good show. JPEG RAW is a bit of a sonic departure from his other records, but mixing tracks from that record with the rest of his catalog provided a well-rounded set that never lagged. And not lagging was a good thing because they played for a full 2.5 hours. For our money, we could have stood there for another 30 minutes, at least and not been tired of it. We’ll definitely check him out again when we have another opportunity.