Hi all!
I am a long time fan, which -supposely- was cured from the MK bug, ha! but in the end, we all end up in the same place, isn't ?
I was at the Madrid show. Top notch, as usual. The band sounded brutal, I mean, perfectly equalized, beautiful arrangements, super deep sound.. I absolutely loved the set. With respect Mark's skills, well. Obviously he struggles a bit when soloing. He has not been practicing much, you can say. Mainly, his phrasing consists now about short and secure licks. But you cannot expect many 8 bars runs anymore. Anyway, there's still the soul there. That will never change.
I think he absolutely knows it, and probably that's why TR has been dropped. If you look closely in the Youtube recordings, he shakes his hands before the final solo, like "C'mon, one more time". He obviously is not confortable anymore throwing 16th notes 4 minutes solos, probably, he's not physically confortable.
We have to respect that. He has given it all for us fans, and we have to respect what he can provide us at this point. I was mesmerized with TR, but, I would have been anyway without it.
Got to say, I found myself several times on tears, this guy has a superspecial place in my soul. Wish I could take one more extra show from the man! I will rely to the old 96' recordings, my absolute favourite era from him