April 9, 2004

My Bela Fleck Rant

Posted by Larry Karnowski at April 9, 2004 1:03 PM

My brother went to the Bela Fleck and the Flecktones concert in Knoxville last night. (As did my father and several other friends, apparently, but sadly unbeknownst to each other.) I've drastically changed my opinions on Bela over the years, from worship to quiet respect with occassional eye-rolls, to sometimes rants. I still respect the man, and I like some of his stuff, but the Flecktones just don't do it for me anymore. Check out my raving in full over on Tony's blog.

Comments

I'm surprised the Flecktones ever did anything for you in the first place. I sorta skipped them entirely. If you ever get the chance to see Bela and Tony Rice, Sam Bush, and Jerry Douglas all together don't miss it. I'm not even sure if they still jam any more, but back in the day it was the shiznit, or whatever. *sigh*

Posted by: Shannon at April 9, 2004 7:49 PM

Take all those guys, add Vassar Clements and Bryan Sutton, and you've got the "Vassar's Jam" band from Merlefest 2003. HOLY SHIT.

Did I mention that it was Holy? Hell YES! Never seen anything like that before...

Posted by: larry at April 9, 2004 8:31 PM

Oh man, I was at the Vassar's Jam last year! It was one of those where I intended to stay only a few minutes, but then could NOT tear myself away. Definitely the shiznit.

Bela's cool when he's on an alt.country (or whatever) wavelength, but when he goes all crazy-jazz he kind of loses me. But he'll always maintain a certain level of cool simply because he can rock a name like Bela.

Posted by: Stacy at April 10, 2004 8:39 AM

sorry I have not gotten ahold of you Larry. I will try tonight!

Posted by: Ben at April 13, 2004 1:46 AM