11 Jan 2002, House of Blues, New Orleans, LA, USA
I've seen the Dixie Dregs and the Steve Morse Band perform before and knew what to expect. What was unusual this time was that I got to see two shows within the same tour; I traveled up to New York City and caught the Dixie Dregs performance at BB King's nightclub on Dec. 2. Both performances were excellent. The Jan. 11 show was the first show following the Christmas/New Year break, yet the lack of performing during the holidays had no perceptible effect on the performance. My only complaint with the New York show is the arrangement of table seating didn't always offer the best views of the stage, and because they serve food during the show, there is always the possibility of a waiter blocking your view of the stage momentarily as he takes a nearby table's order.
The House of Blues has an open floor in front of the stage with an upper balcony that surrounds the floor below on three sides offering excellent views of the stage.
I ran into a friend at the show who also plays guitar, but hasn't seen the Dixie Dregs perform. He was very impressed with the performance. Also, he is more familiar with the Mahavishnu Orchestra than I am, so I quizzed him on the Dixie Dregs performance of the Mahavishnu song that was part of the set. He assured me that it was very well done.
Since he had never seen the Dixie Dregs perform, I informed him of the incredible rapid solo exchange that was coming up in Cruise Control. Seasoned Dregs fans are familiar with this part of Cruise Control which occurs soon after the conclusion of the drum solo. For those who are not familiar with this part of the song, it goes like this: The solos start with guitar, violin, keyboard, bass, guitar, violin, keyboard, bass, etc..... The first two rounds are solos that last for 8 beats, the second and third rounds the solos last 4 beats, then 2 beats, and 1 beat and a half a beat. During the solo exchange, Rod hammers out this very agitated drum beat. Sure enough, it was executed flawlessly.
Right before Cruise Control, they performed "The Bash" which was quite a crowd pleaser. For those who are not familiar with the song, it is a medley of "The Wabash Cannonball" and "Rocky Top", two traditional bluegrass country tunes. "The Bash" features Steve guitar solo that starts off with pedal steel guitar sound that is achieved by Steve turning his volume knob on his guitar with his pinkie finger as he picks the notes. "The Bash also includes some fast exhausting looking picking exercises that are done in unison with the violin (or fiddle).
"Hereafter" had an interesting guitar solo. I remember hearing something that sounded like a polyphonic lick that featured ascending and descending scales, one are both had some chromatic notes in it, and -- Did I forget to mention that this particular passage was done with artificial harmonics?
"Twiggs Approved" and "Take It Off the Top" were performed as encores. (That's kind of odd when you think about it. Shouldn't "Take It Off the Top" be the opening song like its name would imply?) After the encore, the house lights came on and many people exited the building while the die hard fans hung around to meet the band, get autographs, music advice, photos, etc. I'm sure the band would have hung around longer if the road crew weren't so efficient at dismantling the stage and packing it in the truck.
As I was leaving, I thought that there weren't many bands of this notoriety that make such an effort to personally connect with fans. I had a picture of myself with Steve taken at BB King's on Dec. 2. I brought a copy of the picture, which I had scanned and printed on photographic paper with sufficient white space surrounding the image, to the Jan 11 show and had it autographed by Steve. Well, I'm now off to the frame shop.