Well, I've had a chance to gather my thoughts and read what others have said
here and this is what I thought. Overall, the lineup was superb, highlights for me were Mamayo with Yolanda charles,
and a Polish player i'd never heard of, Wojtek Pilichowski..
Yolanda is a session player who's done alot with the likes of Paul Weller and BB King. in her side project MamaYo, she held down the bottom end effortlessly, keeping a funky groove going while she also sang lead vocals. Wojtek was an eyeopener for the whole audience. Built like a brick outhouse, he thumped the living daylights out of his custom burl maple Mayonas. I've never seen a 'slap' player quite so aggresive while being incredibly musical. He was also bending the neck enough to drop a whole tone! Awesome!
Another highlight for me was seeing Jonas Hellborg for the first time since the late eighties.
He captivated the audience with some very expressive playing, using chords I doubt many of us could name, let alone play. Sadly, he's now a Warwick endorsee so he no longer plays the Wal doubleneck I saw him play when he toured with John Mclauchlan.
Other players I loved were Adam Nitti, Stefan Redtenbacher's band and Joseph Patrick Moore. The only low points were Lucy Shaw's clinic which I felt she wasn't prepared for (and very nervous) and Yossi Fine's performance which to my ears was a mess of delays and loops which had the EBS rig he was going through clipping for the whole performance. Also, after last years poor cuisine, we'd been promised much better food this year only to have the caterer pull out at the last minute.
Other highlights were meeting and chatting with Shaun and Colin, both Triple Omega players from this forum, along with many other bassists we'd met last year. Also, we got the chance to chat with Chris May of Overwater and Bernie Goodfellow of GB guitars, both of whom acknowledged the influence Alembic had on their own instrument making. I was particularly impressed with the LEDs facing Bernies basses which flash randomly (or perhaps in time with the music).
All in all we had a superb day, perhaps not with the big names that appear at the US equivalent but all the bassists that performed were more than happy to chat with us mere mortals and discuss techniques, gear and beer. Roll on next november.
Graeme
