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show review by WILLIE L. >> NAVINA's (Willie's daughter's) show pictures
Hi,
while surfing through the net I found your page about Eric Sardinas. And I must say ... it's a great site. Thanks for giving his fans a place to go. There are loads of informations, reviews, pictures and so on. Finally a place with full of nice bits and pieces, that's what the fan needs.
Again, a nice warm hug for this site to you.
Well, I personally saw Eric 4 times, all in Hannover Germany.
The first one was at the Capitol when he supported Steve Vai. That was a great teaser, I bought all his records from now on and kept myself informed about what's going on with him.
We have a very nice club in Hannover called the "Blues Garage". As I am a very good buddy to Henry the owner, I gave him Eric's first album and he was amazed too. Thought it was a good idea to get Eric here for the next tour.
I contacted Ruta Sepetys from Eric's management, made the club known, told her about our interest to present Eric here, gave her the addresses for German tour-promoters. Everything went well and during his next tour in Germany, he played an awesome debut set here.
Since that time Eric has played here several times. And the club-goers were always very satisfied with his show.
And I also remember MAIKE. She was upfront at the stage standing besides my daughter. After getting wet she came further back standing next to me, what a coincidence. She posted a review of the 2004 show to you. In parts I agreed with her. She said, Eric told her that he was very disappointed with the gig. He certainly wasn't disappointed by his performance. He was as good as always. Ok, the audience reaction was a bit ... well ... lame this time. They applauded heavily after each song. But (that's right) there was hardly any dancing. Also not very much shouting and screaming which we in the cold north of Germany don't like to do very much. People are used to listen to the songs and the music. But they can go crazy if they want. I have experienced (and done) that many times having attended over 900 concerts since 1969 (yes!).
Being in my early fifties now, after the shows I talk to my friends and buddies (and my daughters, when they come with me) about the show and try to analyze it a bit. This is what I thought about this show and what I told my friends:
First don't get me wrong: Eric is an amazing talent, a great performer, a bright star among all the other blues-newbies, and a very, very nice guy to talk to. But this is my point: Eric's shows are often longer than 2 hours. Maybe he plays 10 or 12 songs which makes 10 to 15 minutes each song. The majority time is used for guitar-solos. I am a big fan of guitar-solos (always been a guitar-afficianado) but to be honest, after 1 hour I can't hear the guitar-solos any more. Eric's amazing guitar-technique is awesome but it tends to bore people (like me) after a while. Especially when you have seen 4 shows in 3 years being quite similar. I think Eric should change his formula a bit now. My first point: Play more songs, cut them short and play a 2 or 3-minute guitar solo in the song which really bites people into their lazy asses.
My second point: As we all know Eric likes to go into the audience, walk around and make people smile and let girls touch his tattoos. And he plays a slide-solo with a bottle of beer. Also he puts fire to his guitar. All great ideas, very effective. And natural additions to his show. And people clearly want these parts of the show. And they get it. But… at the Blues Garage he used all these audience-pleasing ideas in the last 15 minutes of the show. Why not putting these gimmicks into the show better timed? Let's say: walk around after 30 minutes, play with a bottle after 60 minutes and set fire to the guitar in the middle of the last song. I think that would work better. At least it would wake up people early.
Again: don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Eric Sardinas and always will be, and I deeply admire him and his musicianship. But maybe my points are not that wrong. And maybe this helps to explain audience-reactions a bit. And if Eric reads this and thinks about my suggestions, I would be glad to talk to him again.
Take care
Willie
NAVINA's (Willie's daughter's) show pictures
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