(Thomas Valentine, the Mighty Blues Band, Gas Giant)
We all gathered to celebrate our friend Kaj’s 60th birthday and Gas Giant reunited for the occasion. Gas Giant also played at Kaj’s 50th birthday party 10 years ago but this was a different party this time. I arrived early (18:30) and people were still eating. It was a combination of friends and family. Only Jesper from Gas Giant was there. His brother Thomas arrived at 19 and he and Jesper got the stage ready for his acoustic performance at 20. I guess there was about 30 people and more would show up later including a lot of old friends but I missed Kaj’s friend Kim.
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| Thomas Valentine |
Thomas played a really fantastic and really passionate set of cover songs by Bowie, Stones, Allan Olsen (Danish blues singer), Neil Young and a great version of Smokestack Lightning. This was a perfect way to start the music evening. I enjoyed it a lot. he also did a version of Working Class Hero. Warren Haynes does the best version of that song that I have ever heard.
Lars, a good friend of Kaj’s, his Mighty Blues Band were next. They are a local blues rock band and they had prepared a set of classic rock and blues for the party and they kicked it off with Tush by ZZTOP. They have keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, female vocals and a guy who plays conga and harmonica as well. A solid band. It was a cool mix of the rock and blues. Some of the songs they performed better than others and they did a cool version of Child in Time, which is not an easy one to play. I really liked their version of Catch the Rainbow as well. Good band..
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| Mighty Blues Band |
Set List: Tush, Crossroads, Fool for your Stockings, Boom Boom out go the Lights, Stormy Monday, Crying in the Rain, Dust my Broom, Redhouse, Statesboro Blues, Since I’ve been loving you, Waking the Dog, Catch the Rainbow, You really got me, Child in Time, Don’t believe a Word. Encore: Crossroads
IT took an hour to remove all their stuff and set up the all our gear from scratch. We did not do a soundcheck at all except Jesper to get the vocals so that he could hear himself as it was going to be fucking loud! Thomas had the bass amp turned up to 8 and Stefan was pretty loud. I was also running my synth through a marshall cabinet so it had a pretty massive sound. Stefan help to EQ it the best we could. Anyway, everyone was in a great mood and people were really anticipating the return of Gas Giant and so was I. I had not played with them since the Dragens Hule gig in 2005. Anyway, we started with Back on the Headless track and into Storm of my Enemies. I could hear I was pretty loud at times and it was annoying Stefan but I was getting mixed signals as Jesper’s brother was telling me to turn up so what can I do? Anyway, we just continued on with Holy Walker, Alien Frequency, and Clowner. The band had never played Clowner live with Tommy and not played it live since 2000, I think. What a great song it is. Green Valley was cool but Jesper was letting some of the audience sing parts and it sounded really awful. Too Stoned went down well and we really jammed it out a bit. No really intense jams or solos from Stefan on this night. Tommy really wanted to play All Creatures and we rehearsed it once so we went for it and it turned out pretty cool. They ended the main set with Mama Cool. IT was about 70mins long.
Now there was a little break and while, the 2nd Gas Giant drummer, Kjeld had to rearrange the drum kit. He was only in Gas Giant for about 6 months from late Dec 2000 and until June 2001 but has remained friends with the band. He was going to play on the three songs that Gas Giant recorded with him for the split LP with WE. We did not rehearse any of these songs so I had no idea what was going to happen. Two went well and one was a mess. Ride the Red Horse and Never leave this way were really fun to play and brought back great memories. Firetripper, no one except Kjeld and I had listened to it so Stefan had no idea what the riff was. We eventually pulled together a fucked up version but it was high energy and people had a lot of fun. That was the main point. Let’s see if the band will continue or not after this. I had a great night. Thanks to Kaj and also the Gas Giant guys… The party continued afterwards as different people played DJ and played AC/DC, Stones, Johnny Winter, and then it started to get heavy and I went home at 2:30.. Peace and Love
Set List: Back on the headless Track, Storm of my Enemies, Holy Walker, Alien Frequency, Clowner, Green Valley, Too Stoned, All Creatures, Mama Cool
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| Kaj, the birthday Boy! |
2nd Set: Ride the Red Horse, Never Leave this Way, Firetripper (sort of)
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