Roy Ayers @ Epic, Norwich
Roy just didn’t play his vibes enough
Some gig reviews are harder to write than others, this one falling into the more difficult camp. Why? Well if I’m going to be absolutely honest, I’ll need to be a little bit mean about Mr Roy Ayers, a living legend, and I really don’t want to have to do that.
It was good to see a big crowd build up so that by the time Roy took the stage the venue was pretty much full, and as ever the perfect sound at Epic really did the band justice. There was a lot of love in the room and as they launched into Running Away the dancing started immediately. Roy was backed by a group of brilliant musicians – including the brothers Peoples, Jamal and Larry, more of whom later. When Roy picked up his mallets midway through the track and launched into his first vibraphone solo of the night a cheer went up; this is what we were here to see after all. It’s always special to see a brilliant musician doing what they do best and Roy also utilised a nifty synth to give his vibes a far out 70’s sound at times, which was excellent.
Some of the songs, such as I Wanna Touch You Baby were smooth as butter, a bit too smooth for my taste; I would have loved to have heard some selections from the brilliant Coffy soundtrack from 1973. However, one of the issues I began to have was that Roy just didn’t play his vibes enough, he rarely sang solo lead vocal and increasingly it was his band that began to grab me rather than Roy himself. I understand that he’s seventy four years old and he was clearly enjoying himself on stage, but even so I expected more. Most of the vocals were handled by his ‘musical director’ John Pressley, but most impressively were the Peoples brothers. Larry on drums was great, expertly playing with a real snap to his snare drum, but by the time the show was over the gig had become, for me at least, the Jamal Peoples show. I would easily put Jamal in the top three keyboard players I have ever witnessed; he was absolutely astonishing and single-handedly made this a show that I will remember. Dude played with Herbie Hancock when he was FIFTEEN years old, truly incredible! I would have loved to have heard some wah-wah funk guitar (a horn section would have been good too, but I understand that’s being greedy!) but Jamal made me almost not miss it, as he had every base covered. Still only thirty one, he has the musical world at his feet and I would pay good money to get the chance to see him play again.
Perhaps audience members who may read this will think I’m being a little unkind to Roy, as plenty of people really loved it – and Everybody Loves The Sunshine was brilliant of course, but I see a lot of live music and I think the main man was carried too much by his backing band. An enjoyable evening and I’m delighted to have had the chance to have seen Roy Ayers in concert, but what I’m really going to take from this night is the fact that I got to see Jamal Peoples in full flight.
@StuPres
