A lot would have to be different.
First, I hate to get all Marty DiBergi here, but he started over 40 minutes late. That’s never a good thing, IMO. If the show had been advertised as starting at 10pm, I wouldn’t have bought a ticket. 9pm on a weeknight is a late start, but for a good show I can make the exception, since a 9pm start means the show should be over by 11pm, even with an encore. This was not the case last night (more later).
His show was good but not great. He is great. His playing is fantastic and he puts on a good show. I really could have done without the 10 minute toy giveaway, but it did afford me time to wonder how he makes any money if he’s giving out $400 worth of Kay-Bee Toys inventory every night.
His 2-set show seemed to have basically two different parts. One part was songs of his that I recognized from watching YouTube videos of his live performances and from listening to his pikes. These were great, even tho it’s pretty much a purely mechanical execution.
The other part seemed to be him more-or-less vamping on old 1970s and '80s rock songs and riffs, throwing in lots of Disney songs along the way. I could have done without all of these parts and they were about 60% of the show. They were technically excellent, mostly musically tasteful (I hope you like hearing solos that are mostly uninspired scale runs), well-practiced and utterly boring. He’s a much, much more technically gifted guitarist than I am, but FFS, that’s what I do at home. I turn on a drum track or set up a couple that I switch between and then I let loose and see how long I can keep things going before it all falls apart and I switch to another rhythm: Snow Jam #3 and Snow Jam #57. I don’t really want to watch someone else’s practice/jam session in the first place, let alone watch a jam that they’ve practiced like 10,000,000 times until it’s just a mechanical exercise for them.
The truth is that I was bored after about 40 minutes. I stayed thru most of the 2nd set anyway since I’d spent the money and time to be there, hoping that the good bits would start to outweigh the boring parts, but shortly before midnight I bailed. I took today off, but most people there prolly didn’t so they were out after midnight then prolly had to get up at 5 or 6am to go to work. Buckethead being late caused that.
If he had started on time, people could have been home and in bed by midnight and gone about their lives just fine. A performer being more than a few minutes late without just cause is disrespectful, IMO. People WANT to see you, have paid hard-earned money to see you AND have dragged themselves out of their homes and down to this venue to see you… give them the show. You are lucky that we are here to see you; we are not lucky that we get to see you: we paid for this.
I’m pretty sure this is the first show I’ve left early in like 30 years, too. I had been standing since 8:40 with only a brief break (I was actually glad that Buckethead was late going back on for set #2 since it gave me a longer rest in a slot chair) and I had been up since 6am.
I’m thrilled that this guy is around and I think it’s awesome that he’s able to make a living playing guitar despite having no hit songs, not ever (really) being in a band and being a freak (fly that freak flag high, brothers & sisters!), but in the future I’ll support him by buying a CD or two with my $25 instead of going to a show.
The show was good: his playing and performance are great. The actual music is so-so. His punctuality will likely not inspire documentary filmmakers. I’m glad I went but I see no need to revisit.