On Sunday I got to hear Pierre Bensusan play and Lindaman’s in Spokane. The food was wonderful. The Old Fashioned put others to shame. Pierre played fantastically. I overheard his roadie telling someone that this was the best performance of the tour so far. It was a really small joint holding only about fifty folks so nobody was far from the action. Husband-wife guitar-vocal duo Sidhe opened with some really great tunes as well. A good friend of mine came with so the whole event doubled as an engaging road trip as well.
This time, I didn’t care about the guitar technique as much as it’s been years now since I’ve treated the instrument with any discipline. Instead, I thought a lot about growing older, romance and love songs – wondering if the old ones are maybe the best already – so just sing those!
Early on, Pierre took a shot at critics of his style and guitar tuning:
“The first guy who accidentally tuned his guitar to DADGAD invented ‘New Age’! – Where the guitar plays all by itself. You can even go to the beach and it’s still there playing.”
I took my notebook and ended up hacking some poems together during the show. I guess I’ll put them in the next post.
In the meantime, can “weariness” be communicated through a composition? Yes.