{image1}With fingers traveling at lightening speed, musician/guitarist Eric Johnson shined like his guitar when it hit the spotlight at The Pabst Theater on Wednesday, June 15.
The Austin, Texas-based and Grammy Award-winning Johnson has been performing professionally for almost 30 years, and the show highlighted work from all his albums to date, including his new album, "Bloom," which reached stores June 14.
The show got off to an unusual start with ambient sounds before the curtain went up to reveal Johnson, a bassist and a drummer. It seemed cheesy and a bit mysterious for a musician like Johnson. All that was missing were fog machines or a strobe light.
Then, however, the real music started, to everyone's delight.
Johnson needed some time to warm up and his first two songs suggested the show would be the typical blues guitarist taking solos at every possible opportunity. But the third tune, "Trademark," had an edgy blues-rock feel that got the audience into the show and kept them for the duration.
Moving between smooth rock and raw-to-the-bone blues, Johnson, with phenomenal fret skills, demonstrated his ability to ease the crowd into a peaceful abyss or get them into a feet-tapping and head-bouncing trance.
The music didn't really pass the generation test, though, and much of Johnson's material felt outdated.
Johnson was preceded by a stellar effort from opening act Kaki King, one of the most entertaining guitar players out there today. King uses her fingerstyle technique to wow the crowd with rapid-fire movement.
King uses both hands to play the frets on her guitar's neck and her hands move like five-fingered spiders all over the strings, making anyone wonder how can she keep that pattern going without erring. It's not just a guitar to King; it's a percussion instrument, too, as she drums out bass lines with her palms.
King mastered her style of play in New York City subway stations, and National Public Radio has rightfully dubbed her "Queen of the Acoustic Guitar."
It's much more entertaining to see King live than to listen to her album, "Legs to Make Us Longer" because you get to see the method behind King's fingerstyle madness.
