Johnny Lang

Any one a fan of his?

This guy came and played a club down here and I figured, eh -- why not. I haven't heard much of him, but I know he's supposedly this blues prodigy and played a mean guitar so I snapped up a ticket and went in. The club was pretty small, but Lang's sound was big.

I was a little disappointed when I read an article after I purchased the ticket about Lang's turn to "Christian music" as I really, truly don't care for it. I knew the first time single hands up rose with palms facing the stage I was going to head for the doors, but that never really happened. This guy flat out rocked for about two hours straight. He put on one hell of a show, only did one acoustic number. His primary guitar was a thin line telecaster and he played the hell out of it, he even blew an amp.

He did a great cover of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City" (the only song I recognized, everything else was new to me), he also did a couple great songs "Red Light", "Quitters Never Win", "Wander this World", and "Lie To Me" -- the last version of which the whole band swapped solos.. the drummer, bassist, keyboardist, and even the rhythm guitarist. It was outstanding -- during the drum solo the drummer was in the middle of his solo when his ear-piece fell out and wrapped around one of his drumsticks, and he was sitting there still keeping beat with one hand as he flung the drumstick around trying to get the ear-piece off and than dove right back into the song. It was great.

Lang surprisingly played a lot of finger-style stuff. He always had a pick in his hand, but a lot of times he'd just start rocking away without it. I was pretty impressed, and sitting ten feet or so away from him you know I was like a hawk on his guitar technique.

If you ever get a chance, go see this guy while he's still playing clubs. If you can stomach a tad-bit of devotional music, all the better.