Night of the Guitars

[princeofdarkness56]

Saw these 2 bands in Syacuse on the 30th. Unbelieveable. First off. My hat is off to all of the 6000 plus who saw this show in the pouring rain. No one left. The harder it rained, the louder they got.

I have been a long time CT fan but this was the first time I saw them. They were excellent. Rick Nielson has some serious GAS. Never played the same guitar twice. Played 15 songs and you got 15 guitars. Hamer was well represented. Some nice Gibsons and I think one Fender Tele. Robin Zander is still one of the best voices in the bussiness and a fine guitar player in his own right. He had a guitar in his hand for all but 2 songs. Mostly Tele type guitars. Could not see what amps the boys were using, but they sounded good. I would see CT again anytime.

Alice was the headliner. Forget about the golf stories or the Staples comercials or that he is 57 years old. When these boys hit the stage they absolutely kill. Full throttle, take no prisoners, up close and personal hard rock. Not an oldies act either as he played a lot of cuts from his new cd and his more recent work from the past 5 years or so. The most energy from a band that I have ever seen. I saw Ozzfest and most of those bands could not even come close to what I saw last night. The twin guitar attack of Ryan Roxie and Damon Johnson was unbelieveble. I have not seen two better guitarist in tune with each other like that since I saw Joe Perry and Brad Whitford back on the Toys in the Attic tour. It was hard to figure out who was playing the leads. It looked like whoever fingers tired first lost out. Amazing. Roxie had a lot of GMP guitars and a beautiful Gresth Falcon. Looked like he was playing thru a Sunn head and fender cabs. Damon Johnson was playing Les Pauls thru Krank amps. First time I ever saw one and he was getting some serious tone out of it. Might have to look into those. These two bands will playing in the states thru October and I strongly recommend not to miss it. Some very heavy guitar playing going on.

[serial]

I've heard nothing but good things about the CT/Cooper shows. I saw CT here (in the rain-short set) last month and Robin's voice was a bit strained early on, but when I hear some of these cookie monster guys who scream on record, but live don't actually deliver, preferring to sing in a lower register. Zander is the real deal and even after all of these damned years, he still kicks it out.

Sound guy was horrible at that show though.

[Brooks]

>Damon Johnson was unbelieveble

is that the guy from brother cain?

[John E]

They're coming through DC. I've seen CT a zillion times, but Alice never, and based on your review, I'll check the date.

Was the Fender that Rick played this one, by any chance?

[princeofdarkness56]

Yup, Damon Johnson use to be in Brother Kane. They had some good tunes and some radio play. He has been with Alice for 2 years now. A great player.

[princeofdarkness56]

I trhink Rick Neilson did use a red tele. That could very well be the same guitar.

[cmatthes]

John E:

Ya JUST missed 'em! They were at Wolf Trap last Thursday night. Great show, and I think that was a similar Tele. I think the one he had was a Fiesta Red Fender 58 Reissue - isn't that one in the pic a Nash or something? (Same damned guitar anyway though, right?)

Post here:

Wolf Trap Show thread

It really was a great show - CT was good as usual, but I was really knocked out by the AC band. Great performance all around...

[MrGuitarguy]

Damon Johnson was the lead guitarist and singer for Brother Cane (correct spelling). BC is one of my all time favorite bands. Damon has been a huge hero of mine for years. Besides being one of the coolest guys that I've ever had to pleasure to hang with (the rest of the band was great too. We used to hang after all their Ohio shows) Damon is one badass guitar player. Damon has alway jumped around on amps, but his staples have been vintage Marshalls and Soldano SLO 100's.

Brother Cane was one of the best live bands I've ever seen. They were huge Police fans (like myself which made the group a constant part of conversation) and much like them they would start a song, then break into another cover tune int he middle, than come back out of it perfectly into the part of the first song where they left off. Perhaps most amazingly they did this with totally different songs every consecutive night.

Damon has been in a few different groups the past few years including Red Halo who did some balls to the wall cock rock (Damon played bass) and Slave to the System which also featured Roman Glick, bassist of Brother Cane (now with Jackal), and Kelly Grey and Scott Rockenfield of Queensryche. STTS is supposed to have another album out shortly. The first one is great.

It's also worth noting that Damon is probably the best slide player I've ever seen. (not counting Eric Sardinas, a freak of nature to be sure. The Steve Vai/Yngwie Malmsteen of slide)

Damon has certiainly had a profound effect on playing and song writing.

[princeofdarkness56]

Damon was using Krank amps the other night. Anyone know much about them ?? First time I saw or even heard of them. Very vintage Marshall sound cranked all the way to 10.

[MrGuitarguy]

Yeah, I've played through the Kranks (the revolution series). They seem nice if you like high gain tones. I wasn't blown away, but I've never heard Damon with a bad tone either. The Chadwick sounds interesting though, as it aims for vintage tones. Overall I'd have to say that my Egnater and Demeters smoked easily and offered a higher quality build with a far wider range of tones fit for any style of music.