140 Swiss Franks (around 90 Euro) brought me into a seated double concert of Lucinda Williams and Chuck Berry which was apparently filmed for Swiss TV. Concert was in Basel, 13 November 2007.

First it was Lucinda looking like she was drunk, she began every song with an introduction like "This song I wrote...", she had a book with all her songs into which she was always looking, but all she can do is whining, neither able to sing nor play her guitar, at last she couldn't even stop herself from excusing for the US of A's bad behaviour in the world (when she should have excused for her face), plain boring and the band came came pretty near to playing that famous "brown note". Weell, and about the drummer, he really must be kinda deaf. Don't go there.

But whatever, I came for Chuck, recently turned 81, slim, tall, smiling, wearing the captain's hat (yes, he's the REAL captain!), receiving the "Lifetime achievement award" from the AVO session crew, starting with "Wee wee hours" and then "Roll over Beethoven", sometimes playing weird and wrong, sure, but he still rocked the house when the audience was mostly in their 40s and 50s. His band consisted of three white guys (piano, drums, bass) and his son Charles on guitar plus extra Ingrid doing backing vocals and hey even harmonica, yes, I mean she played it real good. Chuck himself was true fun, no excuses, no stupid song introductions, just playing, bum notes and all, doing the duck walk, rocking, double stopping, singing a cappella without shame, once he asked the audience for wishes, some guy yelled for "You never can tell" to which Chuck answered "He must've been in the restroom because I did that already!"but he played it a second time anyway (better than the first time), before he stopped it, asking: "You remember now, Sir?" After just 60 minutes Chuck left, no encore, as usual. A fine and funny concert by the true King of Rock'n'Roll!

The setlist:
- Wee wee hours
- Roll over Beethoven
- Memphis, Tennessee
- Every day I have the blues
- You never can tell
- Carol ~ Little Queenie
- My ding-a-ling
- Around and around
- You never can tell
- Johnny B. Goode
- Reelin' and rockin'



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-11-14 02:34 by F.U.C. the Captain.

I saw Chuck several times in the 70's and 80's. Always fun and the shows were good. The shows I saw were not with local back-up musicians who were there just for one show. One time I saw him at a taping of "The Midnight Special" TV show. After the taping was over, he came back to perform a 20 to 30 minute set for the audience. From what I hear about Chuck, that seems out of character for him. I have been to several "MS" tapings and no group or musician had ever stayed to perform after the taping was completed.