Jbeau L.
after a couple days off, here we are in yet another hampton inn, south of birmingham. we drove to jackson, miss., last night, then here this afternoon... checked the clock as we were entering the birmingham area, and realized that it was around 4pm, in other words, soundcheck time. why not? so, we headed down to oak mountain amphiteatre just in time to see the guys getting off the bus and head out onto the stage. a few minutes later, after some random tuning, they played crush. was that an electric guitar i heard shredding and filling? ahh yes, tim's in town.. got back to oak mountain about 6ish, in time to head in. oak mountain, besides being damn small for a venue of its type, is actually damn pretty. i'd describe it as being a mix between your typical amphitheatre and a place like red rocks. reserved seating in the front and a lawn in the back, but only the stage is covered. lots of trees, and very lush, especially b/c the weather had been wet.. a bit after seven and time for the opener ... for those of you that don't yet know, herbie hancock and the headhunters kick some serious ass. some very, very funky tunes. i dug them in a major way... get there early. all in all, a damn solid show. tim had to leave midway through to get to his TR3 gig in birmingham. so, my theory is that they played alot more newer stuff while he was onstage, because he was more familiar with those songs, having recorded them less than a year ago ... and the only thing they had soundchecked was crush. tim's contributions, with a few exceptions, were mostly just fills. but, the electric did make the sound much more full, in my mind. tim and dave both played the opening riffs to stay. the definite highlight of tim's guest appearance was crush. the soundcheck was excellent, and the one during the show was ripping. the normal boyd/roi dueling segment was bypassed while tim shredded over some bustin' carter work. clocked in at about 13 minutes ... could've been even longer, had they taken it into the boyd/roi duel... jimi thing was damn solid, but the jam was kinda similar. say goodbye would've been better for me, except some damn fool decided to knock over the microphone stand right before the intro began. thankfully it was re-hoisted just in time... the encore was supposed to begin with PFWYG, but instead they came out and broke in to the first 30 seconds or so of sweet home alabama -- no lyrics, just music ... about 30 seconds in, carter started laying down the ants intro, and the segue moved quickly ... i enjoyed the show quite a bit. acoustics in oak mountain were very nice ... best i've heard so far, possibly because the place was so small and we were in such a good location (one row below and just stage right of the FOH)... anyway, we're off to atlanta in the morrow. going to the braves/giants game tomorrow night -- go braves. catch everyone after the atlanta gig...