REVIEW from Tokyo:
Tokyo, Friday, October 27, 2000
The Deluxe Gallery, AzabuI saw John play last Friday night (27 Oct 2000) at "Deluxe" gallery in Azabu, Tokyo. About 40 or 50 people. We were scrunched up about 3 feet from John. He played a maple neck Chandler Strat copy through a Danelectro echo into an old Mesa-Boogie Mk III. Unfortunately, when John started playing, the amp and/or guitar cord started buzzing, crackling and then just plain cutting out. It was very frustrating listening to John spin out a hypnotic dreamscape of sound only to have the spell broken by a loud noise as something in his signal chain shorted out.
John bravely soldiered on, but at one point the amp just died, and he was left high and dry mid tune. He stopped playing and looked out into the (mostly Japanese) audience, a bit bewildered. After an uncomfortable delay another amp was found (an ancient solid state Yamaha) and the performance resumed. The sound problems didn't go away but John persevered, to his enormous credit. After about an hour's playing John stopped. Raucous applause led to an encore of "Summertime", then John wandered through the audience and outside. I caught up with him and thanked him for persevering through those difficult circumstances. Shame on the organisers of this event for not ensuring that adequate equipment was available for an artist of John's calibre!
---Dean Coulter