CasparCritique: Gitaarjongens, pt. 2: Live in Carré

A few months ago, we had a look at the documentary called Gitaarjongens, or Guitar Dudes in my translation. It turned out to be the best read CaparSongs blog so far (see: casparcritique: gitaarjongens, guitar-dudes). In the blog, Caspar promissed to critique the accompanying live show. So, finally, here it is!

In the documentary we saw how initiator Henny Vrienten went on a road trip to visit Holland's most prominent guitar players, and had them talk about their passion for the six-string. Caspar was pleased with the result and gave the doc four stars. The same 12 players were united in the Royal Amsterdam theater called Carré to give a show totally dedicated to the guitar. This is a great idea, but when Caspar looked at the film he realized that no matter how good the idea, to make it work requires a lot more than just talent on stage.
The show starts off without much introduction, so why rootsrocker Daniël Lohues plays While my Guitar Gently Weeps, we don't have a clue. But remember Daniël, playing a Beatles song with Eric Clapton on solo guitar is one tough act to follow. After that, Anne Soldaat gets on stage. Lately Soldaat has produced a great solo CD aptly called 'Anne Soldaat', and Caspar and his family saw a nice show at Paradiso earlier this year. But what he produces on Guitar Dudes is just awful. He chose to play Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young. Great song, but I just wondered if anyone ever thought about arranging a little bit. Now we get three voices that do not sound comfortable together, with Soldaat twisting his voice into a high squeaking sound. Someone told the drummer to keep on using his toms throughout the song, which keeps the drive out of the song. The way the song ends is just embarrasing. Maybe a string broke, or something, and things like this can happen, but if I'd been Anne Soldaat, I'd have my contribution withdrawn from the production. One particular TV presenter keeps on calling Anne the best guitarist of the Netherlands, but this cannot be seriously considered.
Luckily the average age of the participants drops a little when Pablo van der Poel gets on stage. I saw Pablo play live last year with his teenage band DeWolff. In this case 'teenage' stands for the average age of the band members, and not their choice of inspiration. They play heavy rock, as played in the seventies by the likes of Led Zep. Absolutely great and highly recommended!! Anyway, Pablo says that he was asked to play the first song he knew how to play. And then we understand better why the first two players played the songs they did. Pablo decided to play Whole Lotta Love, with multi-instrumentalist Fay Lovsky on vocals. To be honest, they give a nice show, and make it difficult to decide who's best, which is in itself a little painful; shouldn't the guitar be the star of the show?
Lovsky stays on the stage for a duet with Jazz guitarist Anton Goudsmit. They give a great version of the song Ernesto, with Fay also using the mysterious Theremin instrument. But I don't think Goudsmit needs any company, he manages on his own. Great play!
Next is Harry Sacksioni. The man with four hands, or so it seems, when he plays solo. He used to do that a lot, but this time the band follows swiftly, and unfortunately Sacksioni's acoustic guitar sound is hardly heard anymore. Nice solo by the way of J.B. Meyers. Sacksioni also plays a song together with Jan Hendriks that is very funny, aparently, because all people on the stage laugh a lot!?
As you might have picked up already, Caspar is not too impressed so far. Luckily, we have some great names from the past ahead of us... First of them is Rudy de Queljoe. Maybe his name is not very well known, but he has played in some legendary bands in the sixties and seventies, such as Brainbox, and Massada. He plays a great rock song, and in the guitar parts he is accompanied by legendary Jan Akkerman. They manage to play the house down, and finally the band sounds like a true band. Akkerman stays on and plays a beautyful song solo, which I didn't recognize, nor was it's name mentioned in the film, or otherwise. It might very well have been an improvisation, which is far from the idea of playing your first song, of course. Just remember to tune your guitar next time before you start, Jan ;-).
As we saw in the documentary, it took Vrienten a long time and a lot of effort to get Eelco Gelling to participate in the project. But there he is, in Carré, with his old, dirty Gibson Les Paul around his neck. Together with his friend Akkerman, he plays a nice blues, and just to see him on stage again makes watching the show worthwile. Because, I'll be straight with you, even the appearance of George Kooymans as the last of the artists on stage, doesn't make the show legendary. George stays by the book and plays the first song he ever learned: Tom Dooley. Which is nice, because it was also Vrienten's first song, but it doesn't result in the mind blowing show Caspar would like to have seen when he heard about the line-up for the night.

So, all in all, Caspar thought it was nice, but kept on wondering why is wasn't as great as it might have been with such great artists around. I guess it was in the conceptual thinking. Having people play the first song they learned sounds nice, but it doens't work if not everyone sticks to it. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if one guitarist would have introduced the next one? Shouldn't Vrienten have strongly advised on what songs to play, to get a good play list? Or, why not make sections around types of guitar, and technique? A last point of critique from my part is that a lot more could have done in the arrangements. It looked a bit too much like friends getting together in a studio on a Saturday afternoon. But, you don't have to hire the Carré for that, would you? I must say, I had greater hopes for this production, but I can't make it more than two stars, out of five.

Casparcritique: Gitaarjongens (Guitar dudes)

If you want to get a guitarist talk guitar, the best question to start of is: what was your first guitar, and what song was the first one you learned to play? I remember my first guitar well. It was an old, rambling Hondo (see picture). I bought it when I was about 15, I guess, with money my grandmother had given me for my birthday. I got it from my high school friend Jos, a six-string afficionado in his own right, whose first guitar was an Epiphone by Gibson. One of the pickups of my Hondo was held in place by a piece of electric wire, but still it worked well in enough to perform live with the cover band I was in soon after.

Henny Vrienten, legendary musician from the band Doe Maar, and solo work, made a documentary around these two simple questions. He put them to 12 of the best guitar players from the Netherlands. Now, it is important to understand that Vrienten is not a documentary maker, but as much a guitar lover as any of the guitarists portraited in the film. We sense this little unease when Vrienten first visits George Kooymans, guitarist and songwriter of the Golden Earring. Kooymans, one of the few Dutch guys known internationally, lives in a big mansion stuffed with dozens of guitars, all classics, some of them never played on. Vrienten follows Kooymans through the house with his tongue on his shoes, impressed by the collection, but hardly able to do his job as interviewer.
What follows next is nothing less than a road movie through the Dutch landscape, when Vrienten knocks on doors of, mostly very humbly living, guitarists. Most of us opiniated music friends and lovers have their list ready of personal favourites, but let's not get into that. Henny Vrienten made the choice for us and comes up with a great selection of players throughout the decades. He travels to the deep East where he meets roots rocker Daniël Lohues,  to the notorious musical village of Volendam to see  internationally acclaimed Jan Akkerman (Focus!), and the more city folks like Arthur Ebeling, Anton Goudsmit, and Anne Soldaat. They're all asked what their first guitar looked like and what it meant to them. Especially the seniors, the pioneers from times when Rock 'n Roll was still the devil's music, have good stories to tell. Some of their families didn't have enough money to buy a guitar. Jan Akkerman bought a second hand one on the flea market. When his parents saw that he wasn't going to do without it anymore, they finally managed to buy a new one. All twelve of them, though, remember the moment they picked up a guitar for the first time, and they knew that this was going to be a life fulfilling pastime.

As I mentioned earlier, in the beginning of the film, I thought Henny Vrienten was still a bit struggling with his various parts to play. As a sort of tension span throughout the film, though, he tries to get hold of the legendary Eelco Gelling. Gelling has had a long history of drug abuse and for periods of time he seems to have vanished from earth. At the end of the film, quite obviously from a documentary's perspective, Vrienten tracks him down. What follows is a heart warming scene when Vrienten interviews him. But this time not as a guitar fetishist, or documentary maker, but something in between. He manages to touch Gelling and have him talk about his Gibson from the bottom of his heart. For me, this scene wrapped up the film. You sense that Vrienten has made the full circle, from the special guitar shack Kooymans has got in his garden, to the one-room, run-down apartment where Gelling lives, to discover what binds these two extremes is the love for the six string. (Curiously, the two extremes played together in the Golden Earring in the seventies.)

It is hard to make it in the Netherlands as a guitar player, but what great fun we have playing and talking guitar amongst ourselves. Gitaarjongens (which I'd like to translate as Guitar Dudes), documents key stories in the Dutch musical landscape in a very enjoyable way. Next time I'll shed my lights on the concert the guys put up in honor of the magical instrument. 4 stars out of 5!