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Saw Wishbone Ash Last Night


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The second show of the 2018 Wishbone Ash tour of North America took place last night at the Neighborhood Theater in Charlotte, NC.  The hall was not packed, but the crowd was dedicated.  There were a lot of Wishbone Ash t-shirts along with a lot of Eric Johnson and Robin Trower shirts.  One guy had on a Uriah Heep shirt, and it turned out that he is one of those super connected Heep fans.  He said that the bands like Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash have noticed is there are more young people at the USA shows.  The audience at the show was mostly people in their late 40's through their 60's.  The guy sitting next to me saw Wishbone Ash play shows in the early 70's, impressing me with the names of bands he had see saw them with.  The audience stayed seated with only a few occasions to stand up during the show. 

Andy Powell reminded me of Martin Barre, lively and friendly the entire show.  He talked to the audience between songs, but never talked too long.  He gave a little bit of background on a couple of songs like Wings of Desire which was written at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  In 1989 he band was at a hotel in Germany where guests were handed hammers and chisels and encouraged to chip away pieces of the wall. 

All during the show there were guitar harmonies which the band is known for, of course.  There were a lot of small parts that were harmonized that are less obvious on studio recordings.  This is the band that inspired Iron Maiden to harmonize everything.  During the acoustic songs Mark Abrahams used a capo which made the harmonies sound like a 12 string guitar was being played.  Guitar solos were split about 60-40 between both guitar players with Powell getting the slightly larger share.  The amps had plexiglass shields in front of them, and nothing was too bright sounding through the PA.  The guitar tones were great last night.  Mark Abrahams used pedals more than Andy Powell. 

The lighting was too low to get good photos from my seat during the show.  After the show I walked up to the stage to get close ups of the amps and guitars while one of the people working at the Theater was shoo-ing away everyone.  He was nice enough to let me finish getting photos of the gear. 

Andy Powell started off the show playing a Fender Strat and then played his custom made V the rest of the night except when they played two songs acoustically.  The V has what looks like a crown inlaid at the end of the headstock, and the fret markers are upside down V's.  The acoustic guitar was a Martin.  His amps were a pair of Fender Prosonic combos. 

Mark Abrahams switched back and forth between a gold topped Les Paul and a Fender Strat through his pair of amps, a Fender Bassman combo and a Fender Hot Rod DeVille combo.  His acoustic was a Takamine EAN15C. 

Bob Skeats played a Music Man Stingray 5 through a Hartke LH1000 head into a pair of Gallien-Krueger cabinets, 4x10' and 1x15". 

I should have taken a photo of one of the badges on Joe Crabtree's drums to identify the brand. 

One video from the show has popped up on youtube so far. 

Here is the setlist. 

I think the band's wives run the merchandise stand.  The band comes out to talk to people and sign stuff after the show.  If you have a stack of old albums, bring them to get signed.  There are a larger variety of CD's available for sale than what most bands bring, too.  I bought Andy Powell's book Eyes Wide Open and got him to sign it. 

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Thanks for sharing. I loved WA when I was around 15 (so 35 yrs ago). „The King will come“ was one of my faves, and I remember feeling strange, lonely and kind of special for being the only person on the world, well, in Berlin, or at least in my class listening to Wishbone Ash (when all the rest wasmin Genesis, Duran Diran an B52...)

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Huge fan since Miles Copeland's pretentious "world's-greatest-twin-lead-guitar-band" ad in Rolling Stone prompted me to check out Argus in '72. Mind-blowing. Saw the original foursome in Birmingham AL in '74. Interviewed Andy and Ted in the early '90s (they signed autographs at the VG booth at the Dallas guitar show), and have done further interviews w/ A.P.  I was honored to write a commentary for the souvenir program for their 35th anniversary concert in Scranton.

What's always impressed me about the band is that they've never gotten caught in a nostalgia-soaked time warp, nor have they done clichéd albums like all blues, all covers, whatever.

That said, the original lineup reunited in the late '80s and did an all-instrumental album on Copeland's No Speak series, and while it sounded fine, there was also a "rushed project" vibe to the music, IMO. On the other hand, doing an entire album live decades after it was released has become de riguer for many classic rock bands, and they did Argus on XM on 6 MAY 08 and released it on CD, and it was excellent.

But that's about all they've done when it comes to the musical WABAC Machine, and one original member or not, they're continually making new and impressive music, and Powell insists that they're comfortable in their own skin. Their more recent stuff is well-crafted and very listenable, but for most fans Argus is still the keystone.

They're in Atlanta tonight. This was taken at another Atlanta venue, the Variety Playhouse, ca. 2006, and that Andy's almighty mid-'60s Flying V. Ben Granfelt was the other guitarist at the time, and there's a great live DVD from when Ben was a member, but the band is also continuously marketing new live DVDs as well.

IMG_20180405_0001.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

They were always good live, I made an Andy Powell tribute V out of a Greco set-neck V, complete with JB in the bridge and a Gibson maestro vibrola. Andy looked at and took a picture of it!.. Than he signed the back of it!

 

Spot the Hamer bass in the video!

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