{"id":6955,"date":"2011-06-02T12:01:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T16:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=6955"},"modified":"2011-06-02T12:10:54","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T16:10:54","slug":"derek-james-and-the-lovely-fool-with-new-band-members-at-rockwood-music-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/02\/derek-james-and-the-lovely-fool-with-new-band-members-at-rockwood-music-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek James and the Lovely Fool with New Band Members at Rockwood Music Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night was my fourth time seeing Derek James<\/a> and the Lovely Fools. Each setup was different (last night was no exception) and only one of them was disappointing (hint: not last night). The show was at Rockwood Music Hall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are many bands that create a party atmosphere. In many cases, it depends on the circumstances (the audience, venue, mood of the band, etc.).\u00a0 Then there are bands where the music itself is a party<\/strong>! Derek James and the Lovely Fools are at the head of the class in that regard.<\/p>\n

\"DerekJamesSmiling\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In less than 10 notes (seriously), it\u2019s nearly impossible to avoid: smiling, tapping your foot, bobbing your head and swaying your body. I dare you to show up when they play and prove me wrong!<\/p>\n

Derek will be releasing a new CD this fall. I am praying that at least 20% of this magic can be bottled<\/em>, so that I can party at will just by turning on my iPod. I\u2019m hopeful! I can wager a ton that even if it\u2019s perfect, it can\u2019t match a live show. There is so much visual fun going on that simply can\u2019t be reproduced on a CD. So, get the CD when it\u2019s available, but get yourself to a show as often as you can, it will never<\/strong> get tiresome (that\u2019s another promise I can safely make).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll run through the band and mention what was different this time, then wrap up with a few complaints (which only means it could have been better, not that it wasn\u2019t great!).<\/p>\n

Derek James on vocals, acoustic guitar and kazoo. What can I say, Derek is obviously Mayor of Funtown. A winning\/impish smile, fast rhythm guitar, very tasty leads (usually in 100% unison with the bass, lead guitar or both!) and a southern twang on his vocals (I don\u2019t think he talks like that) that can charm your pants off (well, if I wasn\u2019t taken<\/em> they could). \"Winking Derek didn\u2019t play the ukulele last night. It wasn\u2019t missing<\/em>, but it was still somewhat missed<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"DerekJamesGuitar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Roy Gurel on electric guitar and vocals.\u00a0 Roy was in Israel for over six months. He was not at the last show, which largely accounted for the only disappointing effort. While Derek was Derek that night, the Lovely Fools were talented, but not so Lovely. Roy is an exceptional guitarist. The last time I saw him, I described him as my second favorite local guitarist behind Greg Mayo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"RoyGurelTuning\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last night Roy was wonderful, but not quite as good as he\u2019s been in the past. I\u2019m not complaining, but since I\u2019m ranking people anyway (for my own memory) I\u2019ll say that he\u2019s now third, behind Greg and John Kaiteris of Live Society<\/a>. Roy could work his way back up a notch, but I am doubtful (on his behalf) that he will be able to top Greg. Here\u2019s hoping he takes up the challenge! \"Winking<\/p>\n

\"RoyGurelLeadGuitar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Assaf Spector<\/a> (Assie) on electric bass, vocals and kazoo. Assie also missed the last show, make a clean sweep of me missing the truly Lovely Fools. Last night Assie was spot on, in every respect, back to a typical Derek James show. In addition to his incredible bass playing, wonderful background vocals and all around fun attitude on stage, he added a kazoo to the mix. Derek always plays a kazoo, but having two of them played on stage at the same time added to the carnival atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\"AssafSpector\"<\/a>\"DerekJamesAssafSpectorSingingHarmony\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now to the additions (re-read the title!):<\/p>\n

Greg Mayo on keyboards (I only heard electronic\/organ ones, but he was sitting at the grand piano, so some of the piano-ish sounds might have come from that). I don\u2019t know if Greg sang, since he was blocked by Derek the entire set from where I was sitting. I admit to feeling a little guilty noting that Roy\u2019s play slipped a drop while realizing that Greg was sitting two feet behind him. I hope I get over it. \"Winking<\/p>\n

\"GregMayo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Greg took a few very tasty leads, but they were extremely short (more like quick riffs than real leads). I\u2019m guessing\/hoping that he\u2019s new to the band, and if he plays with them more, they\u2019ll work on arrangements (and visual cues to each other) to have him play a bigger role. This was the first time we\u2019ve seen keyboards added to a Derek James set.<\/p>\n

Kenny Shaw<\/a> on drums. It seems that we see Kenny more often in the past few months than any other drummer. That\u2019s fine, he\u2019s great. But, as with Abby Payne<\/a>\u2019s set last week, if the band plays really loud (and they did), Kenny can match them, making the drums a bit too loud as well.<\/p>\n

\"KennyShaw\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The show was fantastic, so you can stop reading now if you don\u2019t want some negativity in your lives.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m coming to the (very unfortunate) conclusion that Rockwood 1 is simply not a good place for a highly amplified set (though I admit that I\u2019ve seen a number of shows where it wasn\u2019t a problem, including last week\u2019s Greg Mayo set). In addition to the electronic keyboards being amplified (obviously), there were three separate amps on stage (Roy\u2019s electric guitar, Derek\u2019s acoustic guitar and Assie\u2019s bass). That\u2019s what caused Kenny to strike the drums really hard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not entirely the sound guy\u2019s fault, since the amps are controlled directly by the players. Someone in the audience called out that Derek needed to turn up his vocals. They may have tried, but it didn\u2019t make a difference. Derek responded that it\u2019s hard to tone down the volume when the band is 1\/2 deaf. He added that even if Roy crawled inside his own amp, it wouldn\u2019t be loud enough for Roy\u2019s taste. \"Winking<\/p>\n

That said, all of the vocals could be heard reasonably well (as instruments), but on the faster\/louder numbers (the majority), the lyrics were really hard to make out (unless you know the song well). From a party point of view, no biggie, the party was just as much fun. From a \u201cDerek might be singing something interesting\u201d point of view, not so much\u2026<\/p>\n

So, no one instrument overwhelmed the others (the sound was nicely balanced), but together they were all too loud (not painfully so!).<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s finish by repeating the more important points: great show, great new additions to the band, awesome<\/strong> to have the original<\/em> Lovely Fools<\/strong> back! \"Smile\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night was my fourth time seeing Derek James and the Lovely Fools. Each setup was different (last night was no exception) and only one of them was disappointing (hint: not last night). The show was at Rockwood Music Hall. There are many bands that create a party atmosphere. In many cases, it depends on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2],"tags":[703,699,715,927,819,1367,493,702],"class_list":["post-6955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-2","tag-assaf-spector","tag-derek-james","tag-greg-mayo","tag-john-kaiteris","tag-kenny-shaw","tag-music","tag-rockwood-music-hall","tag-roy-gurel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6957,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions\/6957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}