Great American Barbecue, May 27, 2005, The Elders, May Libby, and The Kelihans

(Posted on the Elders message board)

It was good. :)

I enjoyed all 3 bands. An even better line up than the REO / Styx / Journey tour. :)

I'm not sure how much there really is to report. It was an Elders show. Oh yeah, and a Kelihans show. And a Mad Libby show. And Buzzz did sound for all 3. Long evening for Buzzz. :)

I've seen Mad Libby once before. I liked them then, and I liked them again. I did notice and appreciate Doug Sparling's guitar playing. Doug, if your reading this, I liked your guitar playing. :) By the way, there's a link to the Elders in the link section of the Mad Libby website, under "related bands". It notes: "Doug works regularly with these guys, and Pat's played with most of them."

Anyway, great show from Mad Libby. I was most looking forward to them. Not because they are better than the Elders, but because I've seen the Elders lots of times, but I'd only seen Mad Libby once previously, and that was many months ago.

The Elders were the Elders. :) Another great Elders show. :) What stood out to me from last night was Norm's bass playing on "Saint Kevin". Very nice bass part on that song. It interesting... I knew it well enough to anticipate some of the nicer points, and yet, I hadn't ever consciously noted it.

Let's see... Favorite song for Steve's guitar, "Fire in the Hole". For Ian's singing "Send a Prayer". For Brent's fiddle playing, "Brettski's Medley" (particularly the latter part of it). In general, not just last night. Though last night too. :)

Norm didn't have either of his usual basses. And it was really weird seeing him play a different bass. Okay, he played the same bass Wednesday, but it was still weird. (It's a borrowed bass, not a new bass.) And Steve had a different guitar that I didn't recognize, in addition to the two he usually plays. I've no clue if it's a new guitar, and old guitar that he hasn't habitually used, or someone else's, or what. I thought it was a kinda cool looking guitar though. :)

If you want to see pictures view the photo album. For the Elders I was standing by the Steve and Norm side of the stage, and wasn't in enough of a camera bug mood to wander over to the other side for picture taking much, so there's much more of Norm, Steve, and Ian than of Brent and Brett. But I had darn good luck with the ones I took of them. Especially Brett. Brett's hair is a little wind tossled. :) (Norm and Ian have quite short hair, and Steve and Brent had hats.) Tommy get's left out as he often does. Hard to get good drummer pictures. Heck I had trouble enough with Bill (Kelihans) and Pat (Mad Libby) even though the lighting was good (daylight), because the drum kit gets in the way. The no stage venues are definitely best for drummer pictures, as far as angle, plus one tends to be able to get up close.