Jaimoe Posted June 30, 2002 Report Share Posted June 30, 2002 What a show Scofileld put on last night at Nathan Phillip's Square, with new City Hall and Old City Hall providing the acoustic backdrop. Sco and his rather young band was in fine form for this 2 hour free show. I'd say the majority of the 3 thousand(ish) were grooving, thanks in part to hundreds of dance-enthusiastic Phish, Dead and Peach-heads. Scofield's set consisted of mainly stuff from his new cd Uberjam, thus the night's music was funky, played expertly by his backing band. At times, Scofield got really progressive too, especially during one of the encore songs: Uberjam. All and all, I loved this show. People in Toronto are really lucky to have a free show from a guitar master. Just ask Passed Out Guy how the show was. He was swillin' smuggled vodka and dancing all night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcO Posted June 30, 2002 Report Share Posted June 30, 2002 Excellent, excellent show. God, Scofield is a fucking monster, and his band is so tight, it hurts. What a gift to have a guy like Avi Bortnick in your band, eh? The guy covered samples and acoustic guitar, he whistled and otherwise played just the FUNKIEST rhythm guitar playing you can imagine. I enjoyed the couple of new tunes, and the UberJam material stretched waaaaay out, for the most part. This band has come a long way from last year's Guvernment show. There was a little bit of confusion in the crowd though. See, there was a small crowd of gawkers strapping themselves to the front of the stage, getting their grooves on, choosing to be rather oblivious to the, oh, thousands of people SITTING behind them, enjoying the music in their way. Obviously, then some people couldn't see. The clincher came when Scofield took the mic and said: "Well, this guy over here says you should all stand up.... but then some of you might not be able to see.... um, you just work it out for yourselves." Then, he said it: "Now, I prefer when people are dancing but...". So, at that point, a little confusion kind of took over at least my area of the audience (middle front section). People stood up, looked around, sat down, stood up again, sat down again, people yelled to sit down, people yelled to stand up, and so it went for the second half of the show. Don't get me wrong, I love to stand and dance and groove. Also, I love to sit and relax and listen. Whichever is fine for me, I'm there for the music first. But an audience has to do one or the other, and unfortunately, this one seemed a little confused, mostly by Scofield himself. But then, that in itself is what makes a guy like Scofield, and this convergence of the old and young so volatile and interesting. Great show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOutGuy Posted July 1, 2002 Report Share Posted July 1, 2002 I agree in full to everything Jaimoe said... John owns the stage while he's on it... giving his band mates ample time to showcase their talents all the while getting right into the groove himself... very happy getting to see a show like that for free... I would have easily paid good money to see it.... maybe even more than 10 dollars and 70 cents ... and for that im seeing Phil, moe. and soulive... hehehehehehe insert evil grin here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shainhouse Posted July 1, 2002 Report Share Posted July 1, 2002 I wasn't the world's biggest fan of all the sampling that he did, but he sure is in a league on himself. Such a skilled and superb player. Peace- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted July 1, 2002 Report Share Posted July 1, 2002 Great show. As for the sitting and standing... when there many people turn up for a free show in a crammed corner of a city square, it's not so cool to haul hundreds of chairs right up to the stage and take up roughly three times the amount of room of a person standing. All the respect in the world goes out to those who want to sit and watch a show. However, if one person sitting right at the front forces two other people to stand on uncomfortable hills, trample all the vegetation, climb trees break through barriers or just not see any of the show at all (all of which happened), then those people need to be a bit curtious and get off their asses, stack those chairs, or move to the back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reba Posted July 1, 2002 Report Share Posted July 1, 2002 i think they were airing the scofield set on cbc radio tonight. i was driving home from uxbridge between midnight and 1.30am. they announced that it was coming up and then that it was switching to radio 2.....which i couldn't find.......pisssssy!! i wish i'd had it for driving music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOutGuy Posted July 1, 2002 Report Share Posted July 1, 2002 I will say that the only negative thing that I could see coming out of this show actually was the crowd... quite a cross section of heads and ya know what happens when ya bring an older crowd that wants to sit down and a younger crowd that wants to party together... Jaimoe and I actually witnessed fists being thrown about 20 people in front of us on the left side facing the stage... i can remember thinking to myself how I was hoping Sco didnt see this cause would it bring him back into a great situation like this? Out comes security and out come the cops... other than that I had a fantastic time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted July 2, 2002 Report Share Posted July 2, 2002 I saw that fight too. It was embarrassing. Anyone know what that was about? I saw some guy rolling around in the bushes and then a few blows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhishyK Posted July 4, 2002 Report Share Posted July 4, 2002 oooh eeeek there's fistfights in Toronto? I think the last time I saw a fistfight was when I got my ass kicked in grade 10! *grin* poor unfortunate BC bumpkin i am Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davey Boy 2.0 Posted July 4, 2002 Report Share Posted July 4, 2002 Ho ho Last year's Ottawa blues fest had a HUGE problem with chair-people vs. dance-people- typical Canadian stuff, sorry to say. I just hope that the people behind the 100s at Phil have enought sense to realize that we'll be grooving like banshees.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaimoe Posted July 4, 2002 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2002 I saw the fight. It was between Treyter and around 40 Scofield fans. I couldn't hear very well, but I think I overheard Treyter yelling: " Trey is TOOOOO better that Scofield "! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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