Joe Walsh, Leeds Irish Centre, Tuesday 22nd June 2004
 

Peter H's Review

Leeds is a grey, industrial town in Yorkshire in the North of England. In the outskirts of the city near the factories, old cotton mills and council housing you can find the Irish Centre. There’s nothing glamorous about this part of Leeds and there’s nothing glamorous about the Irish Centre – a square, dark brown, brick building set in the middle of a car park over grown with weeds and right next to the highway. Basically, it’s a workingman’s social club - the billboard advertises middle of the road solo entertainers and duos on Saturdays and Sundays, function room available for weddings and private parties.

It’s hard to imagine what Joe Walsh will think, arriving here, after the stadiums, plush dressing room and contract rider lifestyle he must be used to.

I turned up really early with my friends, queued outside for 45 minutes at the risk of exhaust fume poisoning, finally hurried in and got great seats at a table just to the side of the stage. Well, they were great seats for the hour before the Show. Unfortunately, the organisers allowed all the latecomers to crowd up to the front of the low stage and, since Joe was sitting down to play, we couldn’t see a thing.

No matter; the room holds about 400 people and without exception we were captivated for about 55 minutes by Joe Walsh’s bitter sweet vocals, his anecdotes and ironic asides and some tips and tricks on guitar playing. He was extremely funny – if he hadn’t been a musician, I’ll swear he could have made a living as a comedian.

He started with an acoustic number on 12-string guitar. I think I recognised it from one of the solo albums but I don’t have the title. Then he told us about the night before when he’d done a similar event in Glasgow, Scotland. He said he’d spent all night saying “whaaat?” and not understanding a word of their Scottish accents. Then he wondered why the Scots all start singing at the top of the voices at three am.

Next he picked up an electric guitar (a sparkly red Gibson I think but I only saw a few glimpses between the backs of peoples’ heads.) He put on a long delay setting and proceeded to play a ragtimey piece where the delayed sound harmonised with the next phrase building up a layer of harmonies. After that Joe said that in his tripping days he used to sit for hours doing that and “try to work out which was me”

Over to the piano for “Pretty Maids” which brought a roar of approval from the audience then he introduced “Indian Summer” by explaining that you have Indians in the US who ride ponies, shoot bows and arrows and eat buffalo, “not like the Indians you have in the UK who cook Tandoori food.” He said that the song was about the time he was 12 or 13 and he was out running around with his buddies in one of the Ohio Indian Summers of his youth. “We used to have a gang but we weren’t real tough. I had to be home for 7.30 to practise clarinet”.

He told a joke which is unrepeatable here – it involved a guy finding a girl tied to a railway line, untying her and taking her home. You’ll have to ask Joe what happened next.

After that it was back to another electric guitar which, he explained, was tuned to a chord of E major. He said Duane Allman had been a good friend who taught him that tuning and how to play slide guitar. These days Joe prefers a brass slide but he used to use pill bottles (Corcidin?) like Duane. Unfortunately the pharmacists used to get worried when he asked for 20 bottles of pills at a time. He had to give them the pills back just so he could keep the bottles!

He played some of Rocky Mountain Way and told us how that song came about. He was mowing the lawn after a long period without inspiration. Seeing the Rocky Mountains in the background he had a rush of creativity and all the words came flooding to him at once. Lyrics are difficult usually, he said, and it often takes a month or more scribbling on legal pads to get it right. On this occasion though it all came spontaneously and he rushed into the house to write it down. Sadly, the lawnmower carried on with its business, unattended and forgotten, trundled down the hill and across the neighbour lady’s driveway banged into her car and then demolished her rose garden. “All in the cause of artistic endeavour, officer.” “Yeah sure, we can talk about it at the station. Get in the car.”

The next bit of demo was the talkbox bit in the middle of Rocky Mountain Way. The talkbox was made from a loudspeaker driver and a piece of surgical tubing. He said he got the tubing off some guy in the hospital – “I don’t know how he’s doing right now.......”. You play the guitar into the amp, the amp drives the speaker which sends the sound up the tube into your mouth instead of into the air. You open and close your mouth or mouth some words and the microphone picks up the guitar sound which has been modulated by your mouth. Sounds like a wah-wah pedal only better. He recommends you don’t play it too loud else it loosens your teeth and causes your hair to fall out.

He had asked for people to write down questions on the way in (the previous night he had invited questions from the stage and couldn’t answer any. They weren’t too hard – he just couldn’t understand the Scottish accent.)

Did he have any regrets? – not spending more time with Keith Moon. He went for a drink with him once.......... for 3 days! Keith taught him the finer points of hotel wrecking, like mixing together fertilizer with some other stuff from the hardware store, putting into a prophylactic and setting fire to it before flushing it down the john then waiting while it blew up some poor guy’s bathroom three floors below. “One of the worse things that could happen was that Keith Moon decided he liked you.”

Another regret was not having had the opportunity to play with Ray Charles, one of his lifetime heroes, whose recent passing was overshadowed by President Reagan’s demise so that the media didn’t pay too much attention.

Any advice for young musicians? – first learn every Beatles song ever written, all the chords and work out the vocal harmonies “That’s about two years of college, right there”. Second, get out and play with other musicians in front of people, even if you stink. “We got out there and boy did we stink! I’ve been thrown out of some of the best bars and clubs in Ohio.”

Then came the opening riff to “Life’s Been Good” He had this in the studio working on the album – “the one where I’m underwater. Stupid people ask me –were you really underwater, Joe? – Don’t you love stupid people? Stupid people say –Joe, can I have your guitar? - Er, no... I need it.” He didn’t know where to go with the song after that riff but he had another intro from another song – he played the acoustic descending riff which ends on A minor. The producer said, “why don’t you tack that on the end of the first bit and then it’ll be.... well..... longer.” Then he had another song with a reggae beat with funny lyrics about being a rock star. He started singing the verse to Life’s Been Good, explaining each line after he sang it. “I have a mansion, forget the price, I’ve never been there they tell me it’s nice.” That was true, he said; when he was with the Eagles touring for 8 months “wherever I was, that’s where I lived”. “My Maserati does 185, I lost my licence and now I can’t drive.” That might be true – “I might have a Maserati , I don’t know(!)” but the line was a reference to one of his colleagues in the Eagles who once left a party and had three accidents in nine blocks. “I live in hotels, tear out the walls” – Keith Moon again. And so on. And that’s how three songs became one.

Next he sang and played some blues (“wanna be your personal manager, baby”) on electric guitar and then over to the piano again for a great version of “Desperado”
And that was it, a quick thank you and he was gone. No encore despite the cheering continuing for 10 minutes or so; he had definitely left the building we were assured by his guitar technician, Alan Rogan..

It had been a thrill to hear Joe Walsh in such an intimate setting and a revelation to see how he could work an audience with his patter. Anyone who has seen the Eagles live in a stadium will know how you are drawn to watch him by his antics and charisma but this evening had demonstrated what a great, warm, intelligent and humorous personality he really is. I only wish it could have been longer.
 

Glenn's Review and Photo
 

pic attached joe walsh performs "Indian Summer" leeds irish centre 22/06/04
alas, after taking this 1st picture the new batteries in my digital camera decided to expire!!,. considering the flash did not fire the image quality is good , it is interesting to mention that all of these 5 venues this week in the u.k where originally schedueld as "guitar clinics" where perhaps 20/30 musicians could come along and learn of some of the various guitar tunings and effects ,used by joe, the instruments themselves were supplied for the evening by the local branch of "soundtech" instrument stores,. the demand for tickets far exceded the original expectations,!!!! i would guess that there would be between 400/500 tickets sold for each venue the price being kept to a minimum ie £5.00 just to cover the costs of the venues themselves ,i would imagine any fees charged by joe himself would be covered by the joint sponsors of the shows crate amplifiers /and soundtech u.k retail chain musical instrument stores,.the format was much as discribed by the contributors of the glasgow, and birmingham shows, including some of the same stories the hour or so of joe on stage flew by...much too quickly im afraid,.. but once more a highly professional performance,. i should also like to state to those people who constantly refer to joe as "looking and speaking like hes on drugs!"" that i stood a mere 5ft from joe all evening and there was NOTHING wrong with his physical demenor, people from cleveland speak slowly,..!! and being a musician myself, i can only agree with joes statement, that he hoped "to-days pop music was going through a tranistional period"!!!!..here, here, and the sooner as it gets there the better.!!

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