What a great and lovely way to end a tradition of visiting MK concerts! We had seats all the way in the back (thanks to his crappy ‘fair’ website and unresponding management) but the sound was great. MK obviously struggling on guitar, not a lot of wrong notes but just lots of unfinished sentences. As a long-time guitarist it’s never easy to see your hero struggling. MK in great mood, very chatty!
MK needed to warm up a bit, his voice and fingers were not in great shape during WAM but the magic started to come with Corned Beef and I thought Sailing was really magical, I couldn’t hold back the tears knowing this was probably the last time I would hear that unique Strat + fingers sound. The middle part of the show was a bit too slow although the audience was great, lots of young people as well! MK was struggling with the OES outro but SAN was powerful. The show really needs Telegraph, it needs a killer song to unleash those mad guitar skills, SAN alone won’t do it. To be honest I don’t understand the removal of TR after seeing recordings of it from the beginning of the tour, it sounded great, right? MFN and BIA with original intros were stunning and GH with the Les Paul was lovely. I prefer the Strat for this song but that doesn’t work playing the melody with the brass section in unison.
I’ve seen every MK tour except the one in 1996 and this is absolutely the best band anyone can get. Stunning dynamics. Ianto and Jim stars of the show. Great work by the lights and PA folks as well.
Biggest disappointment: the Kemper. It’s nowhere near real amps (in a big way). The fact that 99% of the audience don’t notice is not a valid argument, it’s just not good enough. Its breath and response is so much different from real amps, the warmth of it is not enough to cover it’s lack of real hardware. With all available resources and 40 years of praise with killer amps, it’s beyond my understanding why he made the switch, he must hear it as well.
Highlights: CBC (surprisingly), STP, SAN, MFN, BIA (best I’ve ever heard), GH
