Many are the things that must align for an idea
of great value to finally see it manifested in the real world. That’s what
happened on Saturday 29th of the month of April 2023 in Tigre,
Buenos Aires (Argentina). Our garden, mine and Marian’s (ONE), served LIGHT and
its third live presentation. Even so it felt as a first time, and that’s
actually the case in a way as we’ve never played with Nicolas (Jourdain) and
Leandro (Galera) before, who are members of LIGHT since 2019 to this day. The
line-up responsible for the creation of The
Miracle Of Life, our second album, could finally get together to see what
we could do with the band’s music onstage, both the album just mentioned and
the debut as well, the latter having songs that neither Nicolas nor Leandro had
ever taken part in. With only three rehearsals we managed to cover the full
list of tunes which ONE and I had been practicing for more than a year, and we
noticed we could make it sound powerful and pretty tight from top to bottom.
It isn’t the first time for a musical event to
be hosted at our home’s backyard. The first one dates back to 2005, when I was
seventeen and played in a local band called Desamparados. That gig had me also
as opening act with Desamparados’ bassist and drummer playing a few covers,
among them “Friends” by Joe Satriani, which I remember being my favourite of
the evening. In 2007 there were two other dates, now with Lenny, which was my
first real band. Rodrigo “Gogui” Alonso, the same 2005 drummer, became a member
of this trio, and his friend Nicolas Morales was invited by him to be the bass
player. The Who was going to play in Buenos Aires on March 24th that
year but the show had been canceled. Lenny played that night instead -to a much
reduced audience, hehe- and made sure that music from the British quartet had
its moment in Argentina anyways; we played “The Seeker.”
2014, April 26th… By then I had five
years of online activity on my back as a solo artist. This was a “Delgift” gig,
in which I acted as some sort of host by sharing the stage with different
ensembles made of a series of very good musicians. There was original music as
well as covers, almost equally. Up to that moment, 04-26-2014 had been the best
of the events held at our home’s garden. Nine years and three days later it'd
be LIGHT’s turn.
The first four occasions might’ve turned out
well, none left us with a sense of failure and that’s already worth being
grateful for and appreciating. However, none of those had such a clear vision like
the one that affected LIGHT’s date. It might be that with the years and
experience gathered one becomes sharper, more nuanced even in matters besides the
performance itself. There was a lot of time to let the ideas come up and
eventually be put to test, almost completely stress-free, no rush at all. This
sense of flow makes for a general feeling of joy. Can’t get away with
nervousness though, even possibly throughout the performance, not just minutes
before hitting the stage and facing the audience. But like one of Marian’s
friends said, that state shouldn’t be a negative one given that it keeps one
focused, it means that what’s going on matters enough to be taken to a good
destination by mere will power.
Exactly at 8:11 pm I hit Play and the pre-show playlist came out of the PA system, an eighty-minute mp3 file previously edited to avoid either any chance of interruptions or long gaps between one song and the other. While 2022 was going by I dedicated myself to creating a lot of these playlists keeping in mind that one day they’d serve as background music for an event like this. And what’s better than a good selection of Rock and Pop tunes to brighten up the night? This is what was on...
01. Dust n’ Bones - Guns n’ Roses
02. If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It) - AC/DC
03. A Farewell To Kings - Rush
04. Burn - Deep Purple
05. Afraid Of Heights - Billy Talent
06. Amongst The Waves - Pearl Jam
07. The Song Remains The Same - Led Zeppelin
08. Beautiful Girls - Van Halen
09. I Always Get My Man - Shemekia Copeland
10. Bleeding Heart - Jimi Hendrix
11. Fireball - Deep Purple
12. Birds Of Prey - Deep Purple
13. Born To Be My Baby - Bon Jovi
14. Crazy - Alanis Morrisette
15. Live In The Dark - Jeff Beck
16. Petrol Head - Sting
17. Heart Full Of Soul - Rush
18. Revelations - Audioslave
19. Solitary Shell - Dream Theater
While “Solitary Shell” was playing the band
began to get ready, one last check of amps, pedals and what not to make sure
everything was perfectly set up. The house lights came off one by one until
there was almost complete darkness for a few seconds. When the playlist was
over, the stage lights went on, creating the proper ambience for what was to
come. Around a minute and a half later the “These Walls” orchestral track was
triggered, the song that was indefectibly going to open the evening.
This Dream Theater tune was something my
brother and I had pending since our teens. We’d neither gotten to playing it
live nor recording it, something was still missing. We had to reach 2022 to
figure it out. Watching a YouTube video of a live performance by Dream Theater
made me aware of the right way to play “These Walls” on guitar: a very low A
tuning. John Petrucci was playing it as if it was in the key of Em and yet the
song is in Am, so it depended on me
buying a set of very heavy gauge strings to replace the ones from my friend’s
borrowed guitar. Now this cover that was long overdue could finally have the
green light.
On March 4th 2017 LIGHT had its
first live gig. On that occasion the opening song had been “Kashmir” by Led
Zeppelin. “These Walls” was the new “Kashmir” for the LIGHT 2023 concert, both
have a powerful beginning in common, something that hooks the audience with the
very first notes. The only difference is that the Zepp classic had begun with
no warning at all: 1-2-3-4 and BOOM!, the whole band hitting that initial chord
with guts. “These Walls,” as it’s been stated before, had a symphonic prelude
through Joseph Stevenson’s work. He’s a Scottish musician who’d arranged a
medley with various Dream Theater pieces of music, all in an orchestral style.
For years I’ve enjoyed this work of his every time it’d pop up on my random
iPod Shuffle playlist. Weeks before the concert, I went for a walk at night through
Tigre with my earphones on and this medley came on again. The full mp3 file
runs at 13:42. From 9:02 to 10:32 Joseph’s adaptation of “These Walls” can be
heard. It was a cool moment of inspiration knowing that I could extract that
section and use it as LIGHT’s show intro. I got home around an hour later and
sat down to work on it… and it did perfectly work.
Save for just one other cover halfway through
the set -Rush’s “Where’s My Thing?”-, the rest was all about original songs by
LIGHT. “The Deepest Roots,” “A Blessing, A Curse” and “As Far As The Eyes Can
See,” three songs from the self-titled debut album, had already been played
live when LIGHT hit the stage for a second time (August 12th 2018,
before the album was released in January 2019). All three of them were part of
the third show too, now renewed with what Nicolas and Leandro brought to the
table. From this first record the instrumental section in “Between What Is And
What May Be” was added as part of a combo with the overture to “The Miracle Of
Life,” the twenty-minute suite; probably the highlight of the whole event,
truly a ‘ride across the universe’ (the initial section of the suite has that
very subtitle) plus the progressive hard rock strength of “Between” led by
ONE’s keyboard solo. From The Miracle Of
Life “Let Go,” the album’s main single, had its time as well. Marian and I
always thought it was the most difficult to pull off. It’s undoubtely demanding
but it ended up being one of the tightest. And as LIGHT has been working on the
third album for a long time, why not adding some future cuts? “Spring Is
Coming” and “Eyes To The Sky” had the task of showing the audience what’s this
band’s work in progress all about. The first one has its videoclip already
released since September 21st 2022 (the first day of Spring for
those who are in the Southern Hemisphere). The second one, the only track of
the evening utterly brand new.
The final set list in the right order...
01. These Walls
02. The Deepest Roots
03. A Blessing, A Curse
04. Let Go
05. Where’s My Thing?
06. Spring Is Coming
07. Eyes To The Sky
08. Big Bang-Ride Across The Universe/Between What Is And What May Be
09. As Far As The Eyes Can See
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One full hour. The audience didn’t get my clue before we played Universe/Between. I announced that the show was “coming to an end” so they were supposed to ask for another song after it was done. They did that when the show was over, after “As Far,” and there wasn’t anything else that we’d prepared. In order not to ruin what turned out to be a very decent live performance, I made it clear that it was better to wrap it up right there. It was cool to see that they took it easy, hehe; they got it. However, a show is truly finished when the post-show playlist goes off...
01. Rock n’ Roll Train - AC/DC
02. Rock And A Hard Place - The Rolling Stones
03. Cold Day In Hell - Gary Moore
04. The Analog Kid - Rush
05. I Know Too Much - Gizmodrome
06. King Of The Mountain - Kate Bush
07. Maria - Blondie
08. Ricochet - Faith No More
09. Driven - Rush
10. Survive - The Warning
11. Princes Of The Universe - Queen
12. Our New World - Dream Theater
13. Open Your Eyes - District 97
14. Between Two Worlds - Uriah Heep
15. What The Water Gave Me - Florence + The Machine
16. The Stars Look Down - Rush
17. The Chain - The Highwomen
18. Top Of The World - Van Halen
Us band members had the pleasure to perform in
front of an appreciative audience. Friends, acquaintances, colleague musicians,
neighbours, social media followers and more made themselves present and, at the
same time, enjoyed what we’d prepared for anyone willing to listen. This thing
of coming up with ideas to be eventually tested saw itself manifested in its
maximum splendor, personally I don’t have any feeling of irresolution in
regards to this show; plain satisfaction. That doesn’t mean there isn’t other
set lists with their respective playlists waiting for their chance to shine.
There are, be sure of it. Yet these days there’s no hurry, no need to fully
dedicate one’s energies to something that’s better if taken from the mind’s
world to the real world in the future. The third album must be resumed, that’s
the priority now. Once finished, we’ll be able to release to the world yet
another part of this ‘whole’ that is LIGHT.
Nicolas Jourdain:
drums
Leandro Galera: bass
ONE: keyboard
Claudio Delgift:
guitar/vocals
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