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Blue Floyd :: 05.23.05 :: 12 Galaxies San Francisco, CA
Blue Floyd :: 05.23 :: San Francisco |
Blue Floyd is the very definition of ragged but right. Their rough handling pushes dirt into the British majesty - blues wrestling the cosmic bent, evenly matched but revealing much in the struggle. It's not easy to handle Pink Floyd's catalog, a thing permeated with decades of associations and treasured in a private way that most popular artists can't approach. Legions have experienced their first taste of philosophical exploration through Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here, works that confront the insurmountable contradictions under which we're forced to live. "So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? In centering themselves on such a charged lightning rod, Blue Floyd is able to tap into that power in strange and often very successful ways.
Freed & Oakley - Blue Floyd :: 05.23 :: San Francisco |
It really hits me how different they are from Floyd during "Jam Brick," a funkified revisioning of radio mainstay "Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2." Guitarist Audley Freed's head bobs in a way I've only seen in B.B. King's band, a loose-necked surrender to the blue vein throbbing below their jam. The presence of new guitarist Alvin Youngblood Hart has drawn the band deeper into the crossroads that birthed Freddie King and Buddy Guy. He fills in spaces with a black snake rock that's gritty, perspiration-drenched, hard like you need it to be. Both are worlds away from original guitarist Marc Ford (now happily back in the bosom of The Black Crowes) but the differences actually enhance things rather than making one wistful for Ford. There were times in earlier incarnations when I wondered what exactly this band was trying to do, but this line-up in SF cleared up any misconceptions I might have had.
Matt Abts - Blue Floyd :: 05.23 :: San Francisco |
Driven, and arguably led, by master drummer Matt Abts, on loan from Gov't Mule, there's now a gonad-rattling heaviness to them. They pepper the spacey, original versions with a heaping scoop of boogie, forcing Floyd into a love seat with Brit blues explorers like Savoy Brown and early Fleetwood Mac. More directly, they make something kind of ethereal swing and swing hard. It doesn't hurt that Abts has lived in the proverbial pocket for so long. His confidence in a multitude of styles is breathtaking. He hits hard like Art Blakey, lopes like Sly Dunbar in the reggae sections, and grooves like Grand Funk's Don Brewer on the straight-aways. He's a brute with a watchmaker's delicacy. When I first encountered Abts before the show, I took him for a tattooed youth in a bowler hat. That's the kind of energy he exudes, and it's only when you see the life etched in his face that you know you're dealing with a real man among men.
Johnny Neel - Blue Floyd :: 05.23 :: San Francisco |
The other mega-presence in Blue Floyd is keyboardist-singer Johnny Neel. Big and blind, he's hard to miss. Then, his mouth opens, and a high, beautiful lived-in sound pours out - a cousin to Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, and Edgar Winter. It's not a voice for everyone, but if you aren't afraid of the truth, of a sound dipped headfirst in real things, then Johnny is for you. His keyboard playing is alternately 88-key ivory tickling rich or textural synthetics. You never know what will pop out of him. The jukebox in his head is crammed with a little of everything. One medley alone contained snippets of "I Hear You Knockin'," "Take Me To The River," "Tell The Truth," "Dixie Chicken," and I swear to God a bit of Pablo Cruise. If you're wondering how this fits in with the "Floyd" theme, well, it doesn't. The longer this aggregate convenes, the more threads they find dangling from their hem. Instead of denying these tangents, they embrace them in true bar band spirit.
Berry Oakley Jr. - Blue Floyd :: 05.23 :: San Francisco |
The purest exponent for things Pink is bassist-singer Berry Oakley Jr., who channels Roger Waters in a delightfully creepy way. He spits out the words with the appropriate venom. It's he who often calls the faithful to their knees, opens the door for those who'd like to go to the show, cries, "Come on you miner for truth and delusion, and shine!" His loping bass is a far cry from Abts partner in Gov't Mule, Andy Hess. His relationship with the drummer is looser, more playful. I have no way of knowing this, but it seems like this music means more to him than anyone else in the band. It's just something I catch in his eyes several times at this show.
Blue Floyd :: 05.23 :: San Francisco |
More and more, their arrangements are completely alien to the original versions. Who knew "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was born on a "Stormy Monday?" Their impassioned, deliberate take on "Comfortably Numb" is as satisfying in its glacial execution as the Scissor Sister's coked-up take from last year. Without warning, but with an instinctive rightness, they uncover funk pockets in these songs. Being that funk is not a trait one usually associates with Pink Floyd, it's all the more strangely satisfying how well they make it work. At times they had the gut-punching thickness of Dinosaur Jr. or Blue Cheer, heavy metal floating with a copper sheen on the surface of the Waters. An individual number can cut across multiple genres like their show-closing version of "Fat Old Sun," which begins as a reggae shuffle before morphing into a mod shakedown that finally launches these space cowboys into orbit. If they unleashed this one at a festival, it would explode like a smile bomb in the crowd.
Alvin Youngblood Hart - Blue Floyd
05.23 :: San Francisco |
The entire second set was infused with the prickly bounce of Muddy Waters' Electric Mud, carnal and inquisitive and rock hard. Standing side-by-side, Hart and Freed managed to both support and shine as individual players. A pre-dawn wind blew from Hart's fingers, suggesting open skies and muted light rising from darkness. Freed, especially on his double-neck 6 and 12-string, channeled the primal groove of early '70s Clapton or Delaney Bramlett, who, like Audley, was a picker who could burn over anything he was given.
What Blue Floyd does is rugged. It's a far cry from the near Teflon smoothness of Pink Floyd. Blue bangs up against each other, finds inspiration in friction, plows ahead rather than sails on still seas. More than a mere cover band, they allow us to hear this music with fresh ears. Their sincerity keeps it from being "jokey," and their abundant skill keeps this new conversation with these songs lively. It ain't always pretty but then again, neither is life.
Words by: Dennis Cook
Images by: Susan J. Weiand
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