Bob Evans and Steve Poltz

Hey everyone. Went to the Metro again last night (it's becoming a regular Friday-night occurrence now!). Saw Bob Evans and Steve Poltz.

Steve Poltz was quite the comedian - he did most of the first part of the show by himself with an acoustic guitar. His songs are like ballads and although sometimes it borders on country (he comes from America and was wearing a check-shirt and a white cowboy-ish hat) it is full of funny references. I reckon he could talk under water. Each song was introduced with some wild story about his adventures in a place... such as Mexico... with AK47s and drug busts and whatever but hey... It's a good yarn.

Actually the main act was Bob Evans (whose real name is Kevin Mitchell aka the guy from Jebediah) and he was pretty good. They had the usual mix of front guy with a guitar (acoustic this time, with coloured lights on it???), keyboardist with a stack of keyboards precariously mounted on an X frame, a drummer, a bass player and a lead electric guitarist.

What I was really impressed about is the ability of all of the muso's. Now, not all of them are all that old - the lead guitarist was apparently only 20 - but that didn't matter, they could all play for hours. It seemed like the encore was longer than the actual show! They also went into a fair set of improv bits which were fantastic because it is different from a standard song you would find on an album plus the muso's get to do what they love (and show they can really play). It makes me say that I can enjoy a lot more music live than I would otherwise buy or listen on the radio - there is something about the fact that it's a show that makes it somehow "good".

Anyways, the best bit for me is when they went off into this epic piece towards the end of the bit of the show before the encore and it slowed down and became so much like the Floyd. Amazing stuff. Then Cynthia turned to me and said "It sounds like Pink Floyd". Exactly what I had thought!

The other really good bit was a bossa nova style song which was jazzy and mellow - proving that not all their songs sound the same AND they can actually play all kinds of songs, a sign of decent musicians. Also the other good bit was when they started to swap around instruments. The bass player put down his bass guitar and picked up a flute, the drummer ditched his sticks and picked up a melodica (which I still want to buy one day!!) and the lead guy (who calls himself Bob Evans even though the crowd kept on shouting out "KEV!!!!") started to play a mouth organ.

Top stuff, good night. Actually what made it pretty good is we got free tix - but I still think I would've paid for it had I know it was going to be quite good.

Righto, that's your lot for the month.