Two songs into the Allman Brothers Band first set on Friday, I'm wondering if I wandered into the wrong hall. Hard fast, melodic, under four minutes hard pop song a ; Chewy combustible,"Trouble No More" and "Midnight Rider"… a serious dissenter on jam bands, but I am at ease and I ride through the rest of the set with a great deal of please.
Three drummers and two guitarists and between those five, the songs are not static improvisations, but moveable feasts.
I've loved Warren Hayes since wondering into a Govt Mule concert in the 90s and being blown away by the southern rockers. The bottle neck guitarist isn't just real good at the hardest aspect of jam -self-control, he also always works through melodic lines. So there is always something to listen to.
It is weightless, as far as jam bands go? The Allman Brothers are weighty, fast on their feet, powerful without the hubristic noodling of, say the areier Phish, on the still missing Garcia Dead. Gregg might be the leader but it is more organic than that. The songs, even the long ones, are here and gone, the drummers, especially the bloke who doubles on bongos, keep a steadfast center and everybody else, instead of ridding it out, ride it through.
Still it is jam, improvised blues souther rocker shit. And really, I don't think rock functions at its peak in this format. There is a reason why jazz works as an improvisational art form and rock doesn't really: that is form. As Armstrong proved years ago, and as folks like Coltrane perfected, there is an internal logic to jazz chording that allows the musicians to go elsewhere, reverse, head back, sideways, and yet remain true to the songs inner structure. That doesn't exist in either the blues (if Robert Johnson can say it in three minutes, why can't Eric Clapton) and is the precise opposite of rock and roll.
Look if the Ramones can say it in a minute fifty, if the Beatles can, if For Science can, if punk proved the rock and roll structure is at its best in a hard burst of energy, why would it work for Jam bands.
To put it simply, it adds a heaviness to a form that is better without it.
And, of course, this is just me explaining my own limitations on the form. I can and do listen to everything, but I love 2 minute rock songs. It is the currency of everything that came after it.
Perhaps the difference between the Bros in 1996 and in 2011 is the loss of the great Derek Betts but honestly, I prefer em this way. Derek Trucks plays a mean slide guitar and can finger pick with the best of the, Together they are so quick witted, it is simply remarkable on a song like "Statesboro Blues" -just how timeless it feels.
After a while, like all jam bands, it is like the sound is on a loop, and it is both fore and background. You can relax into the ALlman Brothers, the band is loose enough to move everywhere but tight enough to keep the bottom there at all time.
Great band. I'll be back next year.
Set One: Trouble No More, Midnight Rider, Who To Believe, Rockin' Horse, Statesboro Blues, Sailin' Across The Devil's Sea, Egypt, Turn On Your Lovelight, Leave My Blues At Home
Set Two: Dreams, Come And Go Blues, Worried Down With The Blues, Any Day > Blue Sky > Any Day, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed > JaBuMaOt > In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
Encore: Into The Mystic