If you’ve delved deep into the depths (where else can you delve deeply?) of this blog you may have seen a piece called “Twanging the Wires” in which I relate a tale about my guitar journey – a journey longer than it took for Odysseus to get home after the siege of Troy (but without the same pitfalls) but shorter than the 20th century. This is a continuation thereof.
In the above mentioned piece, I remarked that my guitar playing is to Eric Clapton what my mother’s driving is to Lewis Hamilton. My mother is 94 and compared with my so-so golf game, my guitar playing is on a par (see what I did there). Notwithstanding my musical limitations, my appreciation of good and great guitar players is boundless. It was with that enthusiasm that the child bride and I and two friends went to see an Italian quartet called Forty Fingers perform on the Gold Coast. Such is their lack of recognition in the junior music world of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift and marginally more but still limited recognition in the senior music world of the Rolling Stones, Guns ‘N Roses and Status Quo, we were able to snaffle tickets in the second from the front row.
I used to buy guitar magazines and they would occasionally publish these ridiculous rankings of the “best” guitar players in the world by some music hack who thinks music starts and ends with Pantera and AC/DC are soft rock. You could go straight to the top 20 or occasionally the top 10 to find Keith Richards’ name. He might have been passably good in his heyday but now he’s about as good as me. And my favourite (I’m not claiming him as the world’s best), Stevie Ray Vaughan, somehow always ranked behind a bunch of one-dimensional slappers. But put all of that aside because I’m here to tell you that these four guys are better than all of them.
This was probably the best concert I have been to. Being in the second row, almost being able to reach the strings myself and not knowing which one of them to watch when they are all playing different parts of Sultans of Swing or Bohemian Rhapsody, certainly helped me to appreciate the talent on display. It was infinitely more atmospheric than watching the Gunners in a stadium where they were so far away they were probably in the next post-code. And while the sound is amplified so those in the back row get the same experience, the lack of distortion and other clever mistake disguising tricks means a much cleaner sound and a greater appreciation of the skills on display.
I didn’t realise how exhilarating it would be listening to songs with what I thought were peerless guitar solos, played the same way only different. How many bands have four lead or leadish guitarists? Iron Maiden and Lynyrd Skynyrd have three but that’s as close as I can get. So four of them playing a solo made famous by two guitarists e.g. the outro to Hotel California, sounds….I can’t think of an appropriate adjective so I repeat, the same only different… with four layers.
Over the years my musical tastes have changed to the extent that I really enjoy good music played well and live rather than pre-recorded. Wouldn’t you rather have Shane McGowan (RIP) spitting beer and blowing cigarette smoke at you while fronting the Pogues, than sitting in your living room listening to a CD. But when I see the level of excellence provided by Forty Fingers I can’t really tell the difference.