Marcus King said hello with his charming southern accent and then his fingers turned into notes.
A masterfully played guitar sang in Berlin a very known story. Marcus King brought in his guitar case stories of a swampy blues filled with rock. The place where his great grandfather told his grandpa what to play in the the guitar (not how, no). A place where bluegrass and country filled the streets where Dizzie Gillespie walked.
Loose sounds making a background noise for the continuous pentatonic solo of the guitar introduced the band. A look from Marcus to the drummer and the rest of the band turned the prologue into a hard rock sound with groovy screams. And then came the brasses with their funky melodies.
And then came the brasses with their funky melodies.
The heavy steadiness of the drummer, with his simple but heavy fillings, kept the rock rolling for 2 hours.
A 12-minute-long song displayed the immense ability of the music they played, going from hard rock to jazz, to funk, to soul, to R&B, to experimental rock. No genre for The Marcus King Band is a boundary, but they just love to rock and never really go far from it.
they just love to rock and never really go far from it.
All the players had solos, very jazzy-like, but Marcus and his guitar not only soloed for most of the time but was as precise as it gets. From Jimmy Page to Path Metheny to Son House. He plays them all, but has no particular sound to himself. With his “Down stroke-playing” he shows that technique is not necessary when you want to play the blues, but that, is the only original part of his speech. This tale has already been told in the ways he is telling them. And we’ve heard them all.
technique is not necessary when you want to play the blues…
The coming and going of intensity from the band helped the audience digest the amount of musical information. Every ending of a solo was cheered by the crowd who was speechless while the breathtaking improvisations of these experienced musicians took place.
They finished leaving the audience overwhelmed of melody and harmony, but not very surprised. It’s what we expected nothing more, nothing less.
