MSG at Icon Supperclub, Palo Alto, CA, USA

5th December 2001

Schenker was totally on; he sounded great. He's definitely a happy camper, and even clowned with the audience more than he has in recent memory. He wore the red shorts, dark tank top and low-top sneakers, and was mellow as hell. Seems to move about real slowly. The show was sold out, and was a bit over two hours. The set list was the same as previous shows. Reviews I've read from other shows said he didn't improvise much, but tonight he improvised quite a bit, from what I saw ten feet from the stage. The lead playing was absolutely blazing. Truth be told, he muffed up parts in a couple of the songs, but perhaps that is because he was playing wide open, improvising a good bit, especially during the first hour. All the Schenker 1 stuff and the BAOS stuff was superb. As for the band, they are tight and all can play their ass off. The drummer is real great, Findley is solid on guitar, and Reverend Jones is absolutely a trip. He's like the clown prince of bass guitar. Chris Logan is really very good; he struggled with the Bonnet numbers, but pulled the rest off more than adequately. He had alot of problems with the wireless mics, and the guy at the mixing board couldn't seem to get the vocals right.

As for Pete, let's make one thing clear: Michael loves Pete. The crowd, however, did not like the Plot. After the show, alot of people were bitching; it seemed like alot of these people were metalheads in Ozzfest t-shirts who wouldn't know a real rockstar if one landed on their heads. In fact, Pete did almost land on their heads when he accidentally kicked the mike stand into the crowd during the first number. Personally, I loved the Plot. As for the Ramones comparisons, it didn't sound anything like the Ramones; defnitely a punk vibe, but more of a driving power chord thing, not high velocity stuff like the Ramones. Pete had fun, sounded good and had his English tongue planted firmly in his cheek. For my money, Schenker did some his most blistering stuff on the Plot songs. He also took to the mike and did his best at singing backup for Pete. I think the Plot CD will be a total riot, and I'm looking forward to it.

Tom (lovelostlove)