Switched guitars every tune, each one better than the last. My favorite tones were from a blackguard with a humbucker in the neck, and that burst LP where the entire burst faded except for the red around the pickup selector (from a hang tag in a shop). He had at least 6 LP's, 3 Strats, 4 Teles, and 2 SGs, I'm betting they were all vintage. He may have had backups for all of them too, lol. At one point, he was playing an SG, broke a string, and his tech ran out a nearly identical SG to complete the song. JB catches a lot of flak for a comment he made a few years back about people being dependent on pedals, but I've noticed he's actually a bit of a pedal nut and is constantly tweaking his board. I'm now convinced I need a Rotosphere for those insane Leslie tones. His drives were all set pretty similar, you almost couldn't hear a difference when he'd kick in a different pedal. Amps were a pair of high powered tweed Twins and a pair of Jubes into an old WEM 4x12 cabinet I believe. Oh, and he made great use of a theremin with a delay pedal. I honestly expected it to be a lot louder with all the firepower he was bringing, but it was a good volume. Best guitar tones I have ever witnessed, easily.
Songs were all similarly structured, monster riff intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, 5-8 min jam, applause, chorus, monster riff outro, applause. I will say that most of the tunes themselves aren't really that catchy or memorable. The songs are just a vehicle for him to solo and do his thing. Man, does he do his thing. Just total mastery of the instrument, I don't think he hit a bad note all night, and he hit A LOT OF NOTES! The Eric Johnson style 64th note runs were just insane, but also tastefully employed. Like the dude must be playing with a ton of restraint if he can play that fast and that precise, but only drops that hammer at a few points during each jam. Most of the jams just feature him, but he traded bars with the keyboard player at one point, highlight of my night for sure.
So yeah, try to check him out if he comes to your town, it was a great show. My only negative takeaway is that people are still idiots. Every intense, quiet, dynamic moment was ruined by some wasted ass boomer shouting stupid sh!t. I will say it felt very weird being indoors with that many people again. Hopefully this is a good sign of things to come, as I have a slate of shows lined up for September and October. A few pics for the den of scum...
of course he's a crotchety old man so I'm not surprised 