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Phil Keaggy (and band)
Landmark Baptist Temple
Cincinnati, OH
Februrary 8th, 2008
The Master & The Musician: 30 Years Later - Opening Night Pt. 2
Phriends, thanks for your patience. I know it has been a week since I began this review of the M&M tour, but I'm finally ready to write about the actual M&M set. I won't go track by track since we're all familiar of course with the set list. I must begin by saying again how incredibly talented each musician is, and I know you've heard that so many times already but it was so crucial to the success of the event. To perform such beautiful and challenging music so well required an amazing level of talent coupled with untold hours of hard work to arrange and prepare each song. I just can't thank Phil and the band enough for making the concert, indeed the entire tour, possible.Several individual highlights are worth mentioning. First, the Celtic sounding tag at the end of 'Pilgrim's Flight' surprised everyone. They got into a groove and just went with it for awhile at the end of 'Agora' that was really sweet, I especially enjoyed Melissa's flute again here.
Near the end of 'Wedding' we were wondering why John suddenly got up and came to the front of the stage to sit on the floor facing Phil, until he began pounding out the percussion on the front of Phil's guitar just like on the original. It was just about 10 seconds worth but it garnered him a nice round of applause.
I have to mention how cool it was to see the musicians switching instruments during the songs in order to present them as closely as possible to the originals. Phil, of course, did that many times with his guitars but I was fascinated with Tom Shinness going from guitar to mandolin to cello to bass, depending on the demands of the songs. Ric also did a great job of playing Phil's parts, such as the sliding chords at the beginning of 'Follow Me Up'.
The whole gang chipped in to give an amazingly faithful version of 'Mouthpiece', followed of course by 'Follow Me Up' which was possibly the highlight of the whole show for me. I say possibly because how could I really choose one song out of all that great music!
John was joined by Joel Jimenez next, who turned over bass duties to Tom on 'Jungle Pleasures' so he could play what I think was a djembe, a sort of large bongo-like African drum. They pounded out that 15/4 rhythm perfectly while everyone else did their parts. In the middle of this song John took over with a fantastic drum solo, always a treat.
The music continued flawlessly through the rest of the set, except they chose to follow 'Deep' with 'The High and Exalted One' before 'Medley', but I actually think it worked better that way. I must say, the harmonies on 'Forever Joy' were incredible.
After saying their first "good night", and leaving the stage very briefly, they all returned for a fantastic encore of 'Time' and 'What a Day'. Doug and I had already said that we wished they had played 'Time' in the first set so we were loving the encore. The crowd was singing along on 'What a Day' to conclude a magical night.
Another song that I know this group could absolutely nail is 'March Of The Clouds'. Hey Robin, do you know if they considered it? Not that I'm disappointed in the least mind you.
I hope I've given you some feeling for the show, especially those who will miss it. How about some more reviews from the rest of the tour people?
Gary
Page Last Updated: Feb 17th, 2008
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