In 1965, Houston native Billy Gibbons was lead singer and guitarist for the Moving Sidewalks and within two years he had a local hit with his own "99th Floor", a organ riffing piece of psychedelia, with four years he had toured the world with the Moving Sidewalks opening for Jimi Hendrix and spending many night jamming with him in Jimi's hotel room. Within five years keyboard player, Tom Moore and bassist Don Summers and Billy was on to his next band, ZZ Top.
Fast forward 40 odd years and the Moving Sidewalks have followed up a album compiling all their material into one place with a pair of concerts, one at the Austin Psyche Fest in April next week. and this one at BB King's on Saturday night. Before an audience who can't quite believe their eyes, Billy and the boys did their best to blow off the dust in an hour plus set cutting through the oldies and letting some fresh air into the past.
So if you are a fan, hearing Billy still able to burrow his voice through blues and psychedelic garage organ pummel rock. But as a newcomer, who had never heard their work till a coupla months ago, I find the material distressing ordinary and much much better on covers of Jimi "He taught us 50% of everything we know" Hendrix than on simply mediocre stuff like "Flashback".
On their better stuff, a devastating a blues ballad with yet another great organ break "No Good To Cry" is a set highlight,. Indeed, Tom Moore is a real surprise, a superb cool and relaxed vision who is in the center of all the action. The rest of the band are pretty good but Billy is a natural scene stealer and there is limited room for them to make an impression, instead they drift backwards into a back up roll and when they appear to shake out of it, the moment passes too fast. It is more then just a Billy Gibbons solo excursion but sometimes it doesn't feel like it . And look at it this way, if Billy wasn't in the band, would you go? Now, what if it was the rest of the band wasn't there and it was just Billy?
Still, how often do you get so close to one of greatest living guitarist. Billy is known as a Delta boy but watching him bend the strings on another Hendrix cover is a thing of real beauty. The man is a guitar giant and it shows up and then some.
I left early to get to New World Punx gig at MSG and don't regret the decision.
Grade: B