You be hard pressed to find a harder working musician than Slash. It isn’t enough that one of the most bad ass guitar players on the planet isn’t busy enough with Guns n’ Roses, or his band Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. No, he had to breathe life back into an old project. He resurrected his Blues Ball Band. He came out with an album called ‘Orgy of the Damned’ a few months back and created the Serpent Festival, which stands for “Solidarity, Engagement, Restore, Peace, Equality, N’, Tolerance” to tour in support of it. A dollar from each ticket will go to charities such as the Equal Justice Initiative, Know Your Rights Camp, The Greenlining Institute, War Child, and The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). He has asked a bunch of blues players to come out and support him on tour. For this show we had; Robert Randolph, ZZ Ward and Keb Mo as the openers.
First up was pedal steel player Robert Randolph. Randolph not only had to battle the rain that came about halfway through his set, but a string broke and he had to switch out his playing unit. The professional that Randolph was, trudged through and played songs like “Seven Generations” and “I Need More Love.” Randolph isn’t a stranger to Artpark, as he has played there many time’s through the years. He has garnered a nice fanbase in the WNY area because of it.
Following Randolph was ZZ Ward. This was my first time seeing Ward live and I didn’t know what to expect. The blue eyed soul artist made the most of her 30 minute set that included songs “Mother,” “Ride” and “Put the Gun Down.” She played harmonica and acoustic guitar through her set. She talked about having her 2 kids on the road with her (including a 6 month old) and said how its been a blessing. You can see that in her expressions and her appreciation for the audience as she gave everything she had for them. She also had to battle some inclement weather during her set too.
Up next was Delta Blues and Americana artist Keb Mo. Mo took the stage and almost immediately announced to the audience (with a smile) that he had been drinking. I wasn’t sure how that would effect his playing but I couldn’t tell either way. Mo played 8 songs including the tongue and cheek song “Government Cheese.” He closed with “I Remember You’ off his Grammy award winning album ‘Oklahoma.’
Closing the show was Slash and his Blues Ball Band. Slash enlisted some A list talent to help him achieve his vision on both the album and this current tour. He has Johnny Griparic and keyboardist Teddy Andreadis from the original incarnation, and enlisted drummer Michael Jerome and singer/guitarist Tash Neal. The band played 8 tunes off of the new album. Andreadis handled a lot of the lead vocals (and crowd interaction) with Neal handling the other few vocals. Even though this is Slash’s band, he said very few words and let his fingers do all of the talking. The band was a well oiled machine as they ripped through classics like “Killing Floor” and “Born Under a Bad Sign.” The track that I’m still talking about was “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” This may have been the best performance I ever seen band do on any song at Artpark (I been covering show’s there for 17 years). Slash added the talk box and played through a wah wah pedal to the song giving it an nice cool effect. The only original on the setlist was “Metal Chestnut.” Its an instrumental composition that was maybe as true to any blues form that they did throughout the set. The band closed the set with the upbeat “Shake Your Money Maker.”
Even though most of these are classics standard’s, the life that Slash breathed into these was exhilarating. If I can say what this show was, it was blues with balls. Slash still proving to the masses that he as close to the Superman shirt he wore on stage, in every sense of the word.
Setlist:
Parchman Farm Blues (Bukka White cover)
Killing Floor (Howlin’ Wolf cover)
Born Under a Bad Sign (Booker T. & the MG’s cover)
Oh Well (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Big Legged Woman (Freddie King cover)
Awful Dream (Lightnin’ Hopkins cover)
Papa Was a Rolling Stone (The Temptations cover)
Stormy Monday (T-Bone Walker cover)
The Pusher (Hoyt Axton cover)
Metal Chestnut
Cross Road Blues (Robert Johnson cover)
Stone Free (The Jimi Hendrix Experience cover)
Encore:
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Bob Dylan cover)
Shake Your Money Maker (Elmore James cover)
We would like to thank Jordan Oscar from Artpark for the credentials to review the show.
