I have written before about my old band Atlantic, and with great affection of our late lead guitarist, Kevin. While I tried to describe his guitar playing, I feel I didn’t do it justice. But now I can.
As I was stumbling and bumbling around the Internets last night, I happened upon this oldie, and if you want to see exactly how Kevin played, note the virtuosity of Focus’s Jan Akkerman — and it is absolutely no exaggeration to say that in playing this song (as Kevin used to do, just for practice), his and Akkerman’s style, down to the way they held their guitars, are identical. (Nobody in our band, and quite possibly nobody in the whole world could ever sing like Thijs van Leer.)
Kevin had better hair, though.
Enjoy.
Even admitting his virtuosity, I’ve always been disappointed in Akkerman. His “Sylvia”, for instance, shows such great promise at the start, but then goes nowhere. I always wanted to hear that play out, but never could. Loved his Tabernacle album.
Kim, Any on-line videos of your band playing?
Sadly, we played in the pre-video era. Although, when I think of some of the things we got up to on stage, it’s probably just as well.
That song sounds really rushed – and, it being Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, I’m not surprised – they often asked bands to crunch their play-time. Pete Framton’s episode was counter to what they wanted – a 10min stage-show song down to sub 4 min. Frampton just played on.
But I remember when Hocus Pocus came out – it was on all the radios, and often played loud.
First real concert I went to, when they were touring off that album.