James Taylor displaying record quality at the Euskalduna

by time news

On the big two-sided setlist it said ‘Second pass. Bilbao Spain’. / CARLOS Gª UNDERLINE

the baffle

1,600 souls, hot to the point of suffocation due to the sanchista energy decree, enjoyed the wonderful quartet concert of the 74-year-old veteran American singer-songwriter, who improved the good impression left a decade ago

Not a hitch can be put to the interpretation of James Taylor (74 years old) on Thursday in a Palacio Euskalduna populated by 1,600 souls (three quarters of entry). If he was guilty of being an Aristarco, it could be argued that he did not modulate his voice well in the first of the 22 songs he reviewed in 125 minutes (counting a 23-minute intermission in which Azpiazu passed by the merchandising stand and was amazed: «the vinyl at 50 €, sweatshirts at 90, t-shirts at 40…”), but he sang wonderfully, the accompaniment was perfect (the drums of the legendary Steve Gadd, 77 years old!, the bass of Jimmy Johnson, 66 sticks , and the electric guitar full of sharps and yelps, of false slides, wielded by Michael Landau, the youngest with 64 springs), the acoustics of the Euskalduna was so perfect that it seemed that we were listening to a record in high fidelity, and on top of that James went to the grain, forgetting soccer demagoguery (in 2012 he reappeared in the encore with an Athletic scarf) and progressive references like the ones he slipped a decade ago, when he was obama lost. And it is that the most progressive thing that we suffered on Thursday in the Euskalduna was the prevailing heat due to Sánchez’s energy decree, so suffocating that several ladies used fans (and the undersigned leaned slightly to the right to parasitize the lady’s air next door).

James Taylor dressed as in the Great Depression of the United States /

CARLOS Gª UNDERLINE

Focusing on music, on the immense legacy of his songbook, James Taylor evolved simple, friendly and close to respectable (he was grateful to repeat it in the city and in the local) while he played the acoustic now standing now sitting on the stool. Only once did he strap on an electric, a Fender Telecaster, for his parodic ‘Steamroller blues’, later covered by Elvis Presley (who would take it seriously). In addition, on the second pass he greeted his friend Blue Lou Marini, the saxophonist of the Blues Brothers, who was sitting in the front row, as was the total fan of James Taylor Saúl Santolaria, a local musician present in the warm room (how could How hot is it to be in a venue with such a high ceiling?) as well as others in front: Gonzalo Portugal, Mississippi Queen and her squire Malamute.

«Entering a psychiatric hospital freed me from studying and having a normal life»

Everything went well at the concert, or very well, although it is true that the second half flew a little less high and then the slower and more collected songs were the most applauded, even the roar, in the case of ‘Fire and rain’ and ‘Carolina on my mind’. In addition, ‘You’ve got a friend’, the version of Carole King sung shyly by the respectable, was not so well sung to open the first encore, a double first encore topped by the soul version of Marvin Gaye ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)’, with many people standing up, happy clapping and singing as if they were in front of Sam Cooke.

Al final de ‘Steamroller blues’. /

CARLOS Gª UNDERLINE

Probably James Taylor takes breaks, makes intermissions to dose the forces, and thus the second part rolled more serene, for example with a somewhat bossa version of ‘Teach me tonight’ by Dinah Washington. That said, despite the looseness it didn’t detract from the magnificent first part, enhanced by the band’s stupendous work on swampy lysergy tracks (‘Country Road’), plenty of cadences via Ry Cooder (‘Walking Man’ , ‘Copperline’), blues quite like JJ Cale (‘(I’ve Got to) Stop Thinkin’ ‘Bout That’) or soft rock as Paul Carrack could elaborate (‘Never Die Young’; «it’s a little late for me”, he joked about the age and the title), all interpreted with style, inspiration and slight jumps by the skinny seventy-year-old, who seemed to have a teleprompter in front of the stool, a screen with the lyrics that he used very surreptitiously in certain songs (For example, he seemed to read in his hit ‘Sweet baby James’, dedicated to his nephew born in 1968, or in the lysergic ‘Millworker’, about an imaginary but real worker).

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