À JAMES

I'm not going to say a lot about the actual music as I've said enough in past reviews about all of these 5 tracks. The more important thing is that this was a tribute concert for their departed guitarist James Mac Gaw hence the album title. The album cover picture is courtesy of NASA. This concert was held at the Trident in France on October 9th 2021 and released in 2022 and this is a top five release for me for that year. I am a fanboy I will acknowledge that.

And how cool is it that the stage on which they played this music was the same stage they performed for the first time 20 years earlier! That live document was released in 2001 and is called "Vendredi 13". And in honour of that connection they play a rare song not on a studio album but one they played back in 2001 that night and possibly not since again until here called "In A Wild Way" a Borghi composition.

They open things with "Def Mk1" from "Dark Shot" a Jeand'heur track. The last three tunes are from the incredible "Ewas Vader" and what a treat to hear Jim Grandcamp offer up the performance of his life as a guest here on the guitar on the closer "Ewas Vader". Jim plays with bassist Bussonnet in GUILLAUME PERRET & THE ELECTRIC EPIC. So five longish tracks worth about 64 minutes this double keyboard performance was incredible and unique at the time for the band.

A killer performance that had all in attendance blown away and the feeling that Mac Gaw was among them was talked about much.