"Better" North American Tour (ended 6/26/16)

[Tom22]

What a show last night ! It was great to meet Airghigh, Iscat, JMT and Ken (airhigh gave Haley that groovy hat she's wearing by the way!). Really good people to visit with about our mutual fascination and more.

Air high did a great job hitting some highlights.

I'm make this long but I'll probably only post once on this go back into relative lurking mode.:

Jacob Latrell did a 5ish song set with three of his originals as an opening act. I found myself really enjoying his originals on a first listen and that isn't an easy thing.

Jacob guy has a great strong voice... I'd as a singer he's as good or better than any american idol or the voice male contestent over the years but even more he's a great musician on the keyboards both in his own thoughts and how he interacts with the Ray Moore her drummer and the new bass guitarist Thomas Drayton . They can play straight but truly funky/grooving cover.. but then they aren't complacent and try to do some interesting things musically ...breaking it down, modulating between to a new key.. cool stuff(a few times they overreached or got a bit lost in the excess of it in my highly critical opinion but I certainly enjoyed their thoughts and efforts for trying and sometimes they planted it perfectly which was really a rush)

I'm not sure if the 3 guys had worked together in the past or not. They, (Drummer, Bass and Keyboards), played the opening set without Haley and Notto so I suspect that they could have had some extra experience developing a sound together, perhaps on Jacob Lutrells music gigs etc? There is nothing like a cohesive rythm section to really lay a foundation for any great band or singer etc... A plus.

A few thoughts on the BETTER album: I've sort of been quiet on the board here... in part because I've found new hobby's to be obsessed with, in part by some attempt to increase my humility, but also to some degree in that I had a couple mixed feelings about Better and some great but not always 100% to what I was looking for sounds Haley had been drifting in and out of. That's a matter me maybe going through a period of liking strawberry instead of chocolate ice cream or something , not judgement for me... maybe I was enjoying classical music more than some of the pmj covers.. .. maybe I felt Haley was using a bit of "baby talk" affectations in her scats which were magical in someways but just not where I was at.

After a few more listens to the Better album I came to really start enjoying almost every song ..... but I kept feeling like "man, this is almost there but that guitar player should be shredding more", or "the whole thing seems just one key step held back on the album"..
... now, I've tried to get more humility in expressing my uninformed opinions publicly but that doesn't keep me from thinking and shaping opinions in my mind that I perhaps have no business sharing......
... over the days ahead of the conference, and knowing I might have a chance to share a sentence or two with Haley in the meet and great line..
... I had been thinking of telling her "be sure you encourage your band to let lose and really bring out the rock in some of the songs on Better" ..... but then again I didn't want to make it sound I thought the album was a bit off, or that harry was too respectful for her focus on it etc)... I even expressed half of that thought to the guys in line waiting to go in to the mic check....

But ONCE we went in for the mic check, and I heard the energy in the band, the energetic confident lead by Latrell (leading however, not on a trip of his own but leading while hearing and fanning the flames of what and where he haley wanted to go..not at all on a mission of his own competence)... and Haley encouraging Notto to shred on some solos... all of my worrys went out the door and all of my hopes for her to bring out the grit in the songs on Better were answered!

Better has a lot of big rock songs...rock songs with a funk edge to them that Haley has expressed verbablly about aiming for over the years...

Notto was competent enough on guitar and he was let free to do a few things.. I'm really really spoiled by having heard the very very best guitar players live over the years and.. . Notto isn't up there with the legends on the electric guitar...but wasn't too bad and I'm sure he'll get more confident and semi- pre plan some licks for key highlight places as the tour goes on. (I've been truly impressed by his accoustic accompanyment of Haley in many gigs... I'm a fan, just maybe he wasn't up to quite the star level of Jerry Garcia, Dicky Betts, Joe Sattriani, Metaliica , or Johnie Lee hookers blues etc that I've herd live ove rthe years........
... and in part it might be about just How Great haley his and how strong the keyboard and drums and bass were.

OK this is getting long ......

Haley's Voice... I've never heard her live before and I will admit at times not thinking that she had the rock power anthem type voice needed for some types of music... huge range of course.. perfect pitch, incredible finesse, but on some "big notes" that some songs demand it got a bit thin for me.... even on this album in with studio recording where I can't point to poor mics or sound reduction etc (or perhaps they were mixed for the radio?) I wished for a bit more.... But hearing her in person , maybe with the big amplifiers.. maybe with the band and crowd pushing her to let loose.. her voice was bigger and fuller and stronger than any internet recordings will do justice.

Different sounds.. not better or worse: Too much Rock? some people might feel that the band is too loud and to much rock if they want to hear Haley also sing jazz standards like "At last" etc. Haley did sing CHFILWY in the encore but it might have been nice to break the jam once in the middle and give us a complete change of pace.

Also.. Haley is great a lot of different ways and while I completely , un-abashadly think that this band is by far the closest to really finding "one of the Haleys" without their own minor personal flavor differences agendas or trepidation or confusion etc it's ownly one possible sound... I mentioned Jakarata to Haley which completely went past her coming out of the blue out of context and perhaps a blur in her memory (she probably doesn't have a clue to how much of groupies we are having listed to such a huge number of her public appearance over the years and having them on our playlists etc long long after she's forgot them). I liked that little local band she sat in with in a pop sense...it was a great cohesive group that Haley sung The way you make me feel in a light pop style. My point is...a cohesive group that she meshes with brings out different lights.. this tour might be a bit too much Rock-funk-jamband for some people but it was an awesome flavor for me last night.

----

Number of people in the room ? I'd say it was about half capacity ... less than 300 people in my estimation....but it was certainly an enthusiastic group and that isn't bad at all for where the band was playing.

I'll refrain from going on again about Haley still not having a clue about the bay area yet...which she hasn't had a chance to enjoy.. and I think from her comments about Petaluma feeling kinda "hippy" and "digging it" that if she really undertsood The Bay Area, that she'd love the place....its a mesh between Napa Wineries, Berkely Hippyness, Genrations upon generations of counter-cultures rangign from the wild west bohemian days of the Gold Rush, through John Muir activism to get national parks established in the sierras, to the Beatniks, to the Haight Ashbury, to the flaymboyant coming out days in the 1970s in the castro....perhaps to fueling the internet gold rush of the silicon valley (atlhough they're a bit serious while certainly part of the bay)....
oooops haha.
I don't think she understood that Petaluma is part of the pay.. not a separate place.. and that she was just 20 miles from where Janis Joplin had her house and Jerry Garcia had his.. and that santana and credence c.. OOOOPs.

anyway Point. Petaluma IS like a little separate place in one sense in that its sort of an island between daircow fields positioned 350 miles north west of san Francisco proper and remember that the city of SF is nestled on the farthest west portion of the greater metropolitan area.... and there are hills and wineries in the north part compared to the huge balance of more people in the South bay in San Jose , the silcon valley etc.

Bottom line is it is probably only within 35 miles of 10% of the bay area population...
... and it's an area with tons and tons of bands.. I bet eric clampton might not get more than a few hundred people in the mystic in petaluma if he was doing a few show swing through the Bay Area.

... I'd say it was a good turnout for Haley being out in a less populated corner of the region