Wednesday, May 8, 2013

It Wasn't Bill Frisell

I am sure this isn't about Bill Frisell. Somewhere I obviously missed the boat - this was to have been a great concert in an intimate hall by an extremely talented and popular guitarist who jumps genres like I switch to decaf after 1pm.

Clearly this can't be about Bill Frisell.

But somewhere within the first 4 and one half minutes I was really clear that attending had possibly massive error in judgement. Dragging my friend along because he loves guitar and paying too much money for tickets was looking like it had been a mistake, one that we were both going to have to pay for.

Onstage were Bill Frisell and a drummer and a violinist. I almost never go by appearances - I let the music tell me about the musician. But as I became less and less interested in the repetitive phrases they were playing over and over - really way past any hope of figuring out WHY (they only had 3 or 4 notes these phrases, it didn't seem too complex) past all caring as to why we would be listening to those phrases for 10 minutes at a time, over and over at some point i saw another face as puzzled and pained as I felt and I thought see? I'm not alone - not everyone is understanding this hellish torture when I realized I was looking into the face of the man playing the violin.

The attention in the room from the almost sold out crowd was, to put it mildly, rapt. They were all getting messages from their inner planetary sensors. It looked like several of them were hearing the trumpets of the rapture while I was listening to a demented chorus of Frere Jacques.

Bill, who said that they had a hell of a time getting to the concert, had a large panel at his feet. Some of the buttons on the panel were actually pedals and he pressed them with his foot. Once for on, two for off, and three times for what the hell. Imagine my confusion as none of them seemed to actually change the sound of the notes.

He was extremely focused on them. And then there were the switches. And dials. Hell there might have been nipples and clitori down there for all the attention he paid to them. Those things he had to adjust with his hand, which meant he had to bend over. I've seen guitarists do this before. I've not seen them do it for every motherloving note they played. For the love of all that is holy, Bill is not a youngster. In fact he is my age, which is none of your business but it ain't young. And since I am a dependably lapsing co-dependent, between all the tapping and bending and poking and prodding and the strain of playing the same notes over and over again, I was pretty sure Bill was on his way to some sort of fit.  In fact his mouth was contorted into a sick grimace at one point, or that is what I thought until I realised he was smiling.

At one point, by some magically arranged signal, all of the instruments stopped playing at once.

The rapt audience came unwrapped and let loose - they LOVED it. They worshipped Bill Frisell and his 3 notes.

This is why I am sure that the problem was not Bill Frisell.

So at the next pause, in what sounded to me like a deconstructed ode to 3 Blind Mice, I got my ignant self outta there.

It wasn't Bill Frisell. What it was, I have no idea.

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