Saturday, April 16, 2022. I arrived at the Carolina Theater in Durham, North Carolina after a day of talking amateur radio technology over in Raleigh, North Carolina and then finding some nice pizza and draft beer at the historic American Tobacco complex in Durham. As I enter the theater I am greeted by “No cameras!!” several times via signs and verbal warnings from volunteers although I had two in my pockets which included my Sony G series which never left my pocket and my iPhone 13 Pro Max which sometimes rivals many cameras. Hmm I thought, we will see how the evening goes. Some times I get that greeting at this facility quite randomly I will say and I have given the management the negative camera feedback many times. Why is this establishment the only one I see artists at that will do this randomly? I really don’t have a good answer but I am on the side of not seeing a bunch of cell phones up all night making bad video for whatever reason but I love to have photographs to talk about music. I’ll just leave it there. I have heard all the sides in this argument and we could talk for hours on this topic. To keep it all positive I appreciate volunteers who work for free for live music and the popcorn at this place just plain rocks. The beverage pricing is not cheap but I will say it is fair vs. shed shows.
Well I rambled on inside without a coat as the spring temperatures were pleasant and soon found my seat down in the Pit for this show. Sometimes people ask me how I get those kind of seats. Well there are many answers but in this case I got in line on the day of the sale and was able to get a decent pair of seats in the pit for a reasonable price which gave me the incentive to push the buy button after seeing Tommy E several times even in the last few years. At this point I know much of his family history, most of the background on his Maton Guitars, and his catalog of music. Having met him in the past I know he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet when greeting a stranger and from the stage I will tell you he touches you as a sensitive human who is a family guy. As a “CGP” or “Certified Guitar Player” which was a title bestowed on him by Chet Atkins he truly will demonstrate his talents to you on any stage with his energy and ability. Frankly he is damn amazing to watch no matter how many times you see him.
So I am going to give you a few personal thoughts and notes from the show. Richard Smith opened the show and he was great. He basically came out and put the pedal down on some stunning guitar playing. He has a style that is somewhat similar to Tommy and he can change chords with lightning speed. He had a couple of funny stories and it seemed he only played for 30 minutes or so but I was not clocking his time on stage. He has recorded a 4 track EP with Tommy called “Accomplice Series, Vol. 2 you can stream or purchase on cd. Just to give you a flavor of his performance he got a standing ovation before the end of his set!
Tommy walked on to the stage with his normal smile and very positive aura. He made mention of the fact that the management was happy that the house was “sold out.” There were people hanging from the rafters in that place and that does not happen all the time. I knew when he said that he was stoked and we were going to get a special show. We did.
Tommy just flew into his performance and lit his fret board up with his opening solos. It was so intense watching him and without being precise I will say that by the third song he had all of us on our feet giving him a thunderous applause. I was blown away. I knew the show would be good but hell the show was barely started and we were feeling the crowd roar. I pushed my Eytomotic ear plugs a little deeper at this point as the crowd was very loud.
Tommy made mention of a song for all the hippies out there and launched into what sounded like the Three Dog Night’s version of “An Old Fashioned Love Song” at times. I kept trying to get the lyrics to the melody as he never sang it he only played a complex version of it. Then he paused, smiled, and pulled his microphone back so he could speak. He said some words and asked if the audience would sing along. He was briefly speaking of Ukraine without being really political. Then he lit into Hank William’s song “Mind Your Own Business” and hand the house singing with him very loud. That is when I felt a tear or two in that moment. I guess I don’t have to explain that but I will tell you this is what live music is about. Freedom and experiencing things together. “Nuff said.
Tommy launched into “Deep River Blues” by Doc Watson and I immediately had a flashback to the times I had heard Doc sing that song. I was fortunate to see him at a local show one night up every close with Merle’s son Richard when he sang that song so clear and even once when I was a stage hand a few feet away. I was able to work on his stage several times and it was always just cool being around him. I made an effort to see Doc as much as I could before his days were over and I am glad I did. He was something special. What a great song this is and Tommy just rocked it.
Tommy played some Jerry Reed tunes and by the time he hit song eight he played “Today is Mine.” He really likes to play Merle Travis and Jerry Reed. These versions were very, very good. By song nine Tommy talked about losing his siblings very close together and how it affected him. If you go read about him you will read some very cool stories about how his mother and father packed the kids in the car and took them to play music all over Australia. I really enjoyed reading about that. You can tell Tommy was very close to his family and dedicated this song to his brother and sister called “A Song for a Rainy Morning.” I won’t tell you the rest of the story you have to go see the show.
The next song was “Lewis and Clark.” I am not going to revisit the story from the stage but what I will tell you is when you listen to the introduction about the song from Tommy and then hear the song it sounds like the imagery of the song background. I really, really like this song and wish he would record a live album with the background for the songs before the song itself. This one is a masterpiece.
So the set list went on and on towards many Beatles songs back to back. Tommy asked how many “Stones” fans were out there and I raised my hand. Then he smiled and said he was going to play some Beatles songs. (insert frown here.) OK they were nice songs but there were quite a few and I was waiting for a Stones cover that never came. Just sayin.’
After the standard “Classical Gas” cover Tommy asked the youthful Mason Dawes to come out to play a couple of songs. They launched into the Sting cover of “Fields of Gold” and following that one they cranked out the Nirvana song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with even some nice synchronized jumping while playing which was fun.
Well to sum it up it was another amazing Tommy Emmanuel show. I know my expectations were exceeded although I really didn’t arrive with any. I will say that you should go see this tour if you can and if you can’t make it out on this tour make sure you go see Tommy as soon as you can on a live stage. There really is no substitute and there never will be for the CGP.
Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.