House of Blues in Dallas last night. My first time seeing the Dregs and it was easily the best show I've caught
in several years. Few instrument-based bands are big enough draws to play the hall venues here these days,
and while it's great to catch a guitar hero, King's X or some doom metal band at a pub/room like Trees or Dan's
Silver Leaf (Holdsworth, The Aristocrats), the better sound systems are found elsewhere. The first thing I
noticed was how clearly Morse's guitar was coming through, especially the palm mute articulations he manages
to achieve. He seemed to be comfortable using more forearm than wrist for the high speed alternate picking,
but the brace was hard to ignore visually. The band were on point, and it was clear they'd done this touring
thing a time or two before. And, as intimated in an earlier post, the sound and musical quality were only further
enhanced by the fact that the guys were really into their performance.
It was a polite crowd, with the amateur videographers opting to enjoy the actual show along with the rest of
us for the most part. The first set closer, "Odyssey", got the biggest applause, and as long as all of us geezers
were up, might as well mosey on over to the head during the break. I looked at a couple posts on Dime of
other shows from this tour, and it seems the encore varies based on what local friend of the band's might be
available. I called it beforehand that we'd probably get to hear an Andy Timmons solo before the night was
done, but the best solo on "Crossroads" came from the other guest, Jennifer Batten. Geeze, we've never
seen those 2 on stage together before... oh wait a minute, Uli Jon Roth 2 years ago. Only this time, you could
actually hear their guitars. Then the band proper closed with a rousing edition of "Bloodsucking Leeches". It
was a fitting end to a special evening.