I also had a superb day despite developing flu throughout the day (I've been off work since). The highlight for me was definitely T.M. Stevens who I've wanted to see live since I heard his 'Supernatural' on the 1995 trace Elliot compilation CD 'Also available in green' and BOY! was he worth the wait. He was playing with a trio -'Swans in flight' that he'd only met 2 days previously at the Birmingham guitar show but they were as tight as any band I've heard.
As Shaun said, Yolanda Charles was superb, playing with her band of session musicians, all of whom have pretty impressive resumes...
Richard Bona was another highlight.
He chose not to put any Bass through the PA so the auditorium was deathly silent as we listened to his playing and singing. Interestingly, his tone was as clear as a bell playing through 2 EBS rigs. When Janek Gwizalda came on, using one of the same rigs he had a very dull, muffled tone, as did Hadrien Feraud earlier in the day playing through a Markbass rig. Not a very good advertisement for their respective manufacturers, even if that was the tone they were aiming for. Actually, for me, the best tone of the day came from Yolanda's Mesa Boogie rig. Food for thought. I have to say (and shaun will probably disagree), I thought there was too much jazz noodling. Both feraud and Gwizalda whilst being superb musicians seemed to me to be very self-indulgent, playing what sounded like very similar 2000 notes a second scales and arpeggios. I'd prefer to hear tunes I can go home humming. Incidentally, all the drummers that took part were phenomenally good. Looking forward to next year. Graeme
