By Rasmus Heide
Now, who's this Long John Baldry anyway? His current tour with Tony Ashton guesting on keys certainly takes in some very weird venues all across Germany. If you want to go and see a Tony Ashton show this is not the place. However, if you're looking for some first class r&b you wouldn't find any much better than this in a hundred years. But I'd come only because of our old friend's involvement and I came away very satisfied.
Managing to stop by in Kiel enroute from Augsburg in Southern Bavaria to home sweet home on the Danish peninsula I arrived just 15 minutes before announced showtime kick-off, squeezed the Volvo into a much too small parking space (it's a 40 tonner with a semi trailer so downtown parking spaces nearly always tend to be too small :-) ) and went off to the venue. Once inside I tried to breathe but the air was already thick with smoke and to get a beer you had to queue twice - once to buy the beer vouchers and then again to get the actual liquid - only in Germany!!
The band entered the stage from the right side (seen from the crowd) - the bar was behind the stage, only separated by a black curtain and Ashton's antique Hammond and Roland RD1000 piano were set up right on the lefthand edge of the stage (next to the two aforementioned queues!). They started with an instrumental blues to warm up the crowd before LJB made his entrance. Ashton managed to include use of his high stool, his glasses and his left foot already during his solo in this first track! He was off to a good start you could say; Ashton in good shape, resulting in massive waves of laughter from what turned out to be a very receptive crowd. He has a very special way of performing - it's part clown-acting, walking a thin line between the witty and the ridiculous, making hilarious moves and dances while performing some very inspired organ (or piano). LJB even introduced him on piano, organ and undercarriage!
The horn player made the introduction of LJB after this first track and onto the stage strode this tall elderly British gentleman type in a smart white jacket with vest and tie, black striped trousers and a white summer hat with a glass of white wine in one hand. He then proceeded to deliver some truly aweinspiring r&b vocals the likes of which is rarely heard. And was he in a good mood? He was constantly joking with the crowd between the songs, even speaking a broken German most of the time. He first had the crowd in fits of laughter when he pronounced the town of Kiel as the city of love, this beautiful city on the Elbe... It's at least a hundred km's away from this river!!
As I had no prior knowledge of LJB I can't give an accurate setlist, but much of it was old r&b classics, including also some Muddy Waters and even a cajun-ish track that included a bit of I Got Rhythm. Already after two songs with LJB he introduced the band (line-up as seen on the DPWWW Tourdates pages) which had been expanded by the inclusion of a locally residing American harp player (a bunch of his woman friends were making waves in the crowd whenever he was being introduced!!) and Ashton was introduced as having been a member of Family, Remo Four and, most importantly, Ashton, Gardner & Dyke. Some wig in the audience yelled out for Paice, Ashton & Lord at this point to which LJB replied that yes, he'd done some work with Jon Lord too, "but he doesn't have my sense of humour!" I'm not sure if anything unfriendly was meant by this, but Ashton corrected him by saying _nobody_ had his sense of humour! The first set was around 55 minutes long and then they took the customary 20 minute break that turns into 40 minutes before it's over, during which a roadie was selling CDs by most of the musicians in the band. Unfortunately the only Ashton title on show was Repetoire Record's rerelease of Live In The Studio.
LJB opened the second set with a few songs played by himself on 12 string guitar. To me this was the unexpected highlight of the show. The tracks were done in a very Robert Johnson-like way, with very effectful backing from the harp player and LJB's guitarist. Then, after a long talk of "there must be easier ways of earning a living" from LJB where he put forth the idea of settling down as manager for an old boys band, sort of Take That for old timers (complete with Tony Ashton miming his interpretation to said boy group's name; an exclamation made while punching someone!) it was "time for Tony Ashton!"
His first song was Hackman's Farm (I think - lyrics go "I'm sitting down here in this one-room country shack a thousand miles from nowhere") which he opened with an amazing piano intro that seemed to go on forever, all the while acting out what he played! At the end of this song the bass player immediately went into a boogie bass line that could only signal It's Weird (The Pope). This song comes from a set of four demos he did in 1990 with just upright bass, organ and drums, but was here enhanced to feature also harp and tenor sax. Once the band had joined in the backing over said bass line Ashton lighted up a massive joint, the size of a big man's middle finger! I'm not sure of its contents, but it produced a lot of thick smoke and hysterical laughter in the crowd. The song is in essence a joke thing, the lyrics go "When I smoke this dope - it's weird, I sometimes feel like the pope - it's wierd!" He put on his silly woolly knitted hat and made a great performance of it all. The middle piece of the song went into some sort of jazzy free-for-all surreal jam before returning to the final verse from Ashton. This was Tony Ashton's piece of the concert. I thought he might have done Resurrection Shuffle, but was positively suprised by the inclusion of It's Weird instead.
LJB returned for much more of his stuff and in the end, after two encores and LJB saying that "somebody should have recorded the show tonight", it had all lasted close to two and a half hours, excluding the break. It was great to see Tony Ashton again and I can safely say that he is in top form. He didn't appear to feel too well in this entourage, but musically the show didn't suffer from that. I can only recommend others to catch the show if and when they get the chance.
Rasmus Heide, Denmark
© 1997 stephan@logos.cy.net
Get your own Free Home Page