Opening up the night was The Tom Savage Trio. I watched Tom perform a couple of years ago and I was impressed then and now with the release of his album and a cross Canada tour under his belt he is an act that guitar lovers shouldn’t miss. His sound can be comparable to Cuff the Duke but with a little more attitude and a more bluesy sound, with a alternative Country sound kicked in. I thought that this show was a definite show where you had to come ready to show the crowd that you could give Gordie and James a little run for their money and Tom did exactly that. This was a show where you had to play your guitar like you never had before. The only damper that he faced was the fact that he had nowhere to move I think he may have had room to take one step back and that’s about it. I was also surprised to see that Geoff was using a fretless five string bass. They are few and far between watching someone play a fretless bass guitar, it’s just one of those things where if you don’t play it perfectly it is going to sound like crap. By Far the best song that Tom did was his last song which was a Bob Dylan cover, he gave it all in this song. While I was looking around you could see that people where thinking the same thing that I was thinking holy Sh*t, It was simply flat out amazing. By the way he was hitting and the speed and which he was hitting his strings I can’t believe the he didn’t break any of the strings. Tom is getting ready to embark on his new tour of Western Canada 24 shows in 25 days and this show was a perfect send off.

This was the first time in almost a year that I watched The Spades play, And as usual they didn’t disappoint. They played all of my favourite songs and then a new one from their upcoming album that they are currently working on. By this time there was a little bit more room on stage to move around and they took advantage of the newly cleared space. This is a band that needs space, I can’t see myself watching a Spades show and not watching them move around at all. Their set was mixed up a little more than usual I found. The problem being second in a three band line up is the fact that the set list is a bit shortened than usual (and what I want to hear). I found that they played a couple more of their slower songs than their faster songs. Chachi now has a pedal set up that I have never seen before, it almost looks like a piano on the floor but big enough to use your feet to hit the different keys. I didn’t see as many leg kicks or slides as I normally do from James but that is because he hurt his ankle out in Halifax on Saturday night. The slow motion move they busted out in one of their songs was pretty good it blended perfectly in with the song. Also a Spades show wouldn’t be without James playing a tune with his Harmonica which he played during their last song.

This was about the fifth time that I have watched Grady play I have yet to miss a show in Kingston. I have to say that Gordie is diffidently my all time favourite guitar player. He is one person that I’m pretty sure no one else can copy. I was surprised to see that a couple of my favourite guitars that he plays wasn’t in his arsenal this time around. He didn’t have his red Gibson or his white double neck guitar. When I didn’t see the red Gibson I thought my chances dropped pretty large in hearing Diggin a Hole which is one of my favourite Big Sugar songs. One of my favourite songs that Grady rewrote is Joe Louis which wasn’t played the last couple of times that Grady has played here in Kingston, but luckily they played it during their last song along with James who came up and played a couple of songs during the encore and it sounded F’n awesome. Another factor which makes Grady such a great band is Nina the drummer. She is better than most guys that I see play drums, she is partially hidden by her drum setup but when she come crashing down with her sticks you feel and hear them. Every time that I watch her play still leaves my amazed at her skills and sound that she leaves behind. Grady whipped through songs from both of their albums and a couple new tunes that I haven’t heard before. Another song that I like to hear is the “Black ass” song, last time he had a good intro to the song but this time they just took right off into the song. There was a couple of times where I pretty much zoned right into the guitar watching and listening Gordie play and nothing else. During the first two or three songs Gordie was hitting his strings so hard that he broke two of them right in a row. The decibels were not like they used to be I’m not sure if it was because of the sound system hooked up or not but it just wasn’t as loud as normal, I walked out of Barnone without my hearing being destroyed like it usually was. At the End of the night I don’t think Barnone will see a show like this again in a while.

www.shadygrady.net
www.thespades.ca
www.myspace.com/tomsavagemusic

Matt Hartwick
m.hartwick@partyinkingston.com