Concert: Herbie Hancock @Vredenburg, Utrecht
General Info
Artist: Herbie Hancock
Location: Vredenburg, Utrecht
When: 12 December 2006
Who?
Well, read about this grand old man of jazz, fusion and almost everything concerning music here. Was there with me mate, ArAm.
I knew HH from his incredibly weird video for the Rockit track from 1983 (holy $#!t). And later on, I discovered his jazz talents through his excellent Round Midnight soundtrack.
This musician’s always been on my radar as one that I have to see performing his stuff live, and now I finally got the chance!
The Show
Tough call describing this concert, but I’ll try anyway: wow!
Incredible musicians:
- Vinnie Colaiuta, on drums
- Nathan East, on bass
- Lionel Loueke, on guitars
Great selection of tracks
There a lot of stuff I didn’t know or recognize but his Watermellon Man and Cantaloupe were incredible. Some tracks were strange because although I didn’t like some parts of the tracks (a solo, a theme), I still was overwhelmed by the pure passion and craftsmanship that shone through. This was even the case with their version of the much hated I Just Called To Say I Love You by mister S. Wonder.
On one piece, the guys were driving me nuts: the bass was doing his own stuff on a different tempo and beat from the drummer. That kept on for a coupla minutes, I was totally flabbergasted.. The solo performance by Lionel Loueke was also great.
I also liked the way Hancock MC’d the whole event: sometimes funny, sometimes interesting, never uninterested.
Conclusion
It’s nice to be right about a hunch: I expected a great concert performed by genius musicians and that it would be possible that some of the music wouldn’t work for me. I knew/guessed that just seeing and hearing (lousy acoustics btw on the top level of the hall) these guys would be inspiring and possibly influential. I also knew that I’d be writing a review that sounded like a total a$$-kissing fanboy, heheh..
Rating: 
December 18th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
I saw Herbie years ago on a rock/jazz festival in the centre of Copenhagen. I was really impressed althought I’m not a jazz fan at all