Tommy Emmanuel
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Near the end of this highly entertaining show, Tommy Emmanuel gave the audience - or, at least, the 'guitar geeks' within - a guitar lesson, showing them how to play his tricky 2004 song, Tall Fiddler. Sections and techniques were played slowly so that we could see how they came together. It was a generous gesture on his part; but the realisation quickly dawned that it would take mere mortals hours without number to master Emmanuel's virtuoso fingerstyle expertise.
His trademark techniques were all here: glittering showers of harmonics, molten flurries of notes, guitars being played by the fretting hand only, guitar bodies and microphones being pressed into service as percussion instruments. At one point he "introduced" a bassist, drummer, rhythm guitarist and lead guitarist, and proceeded to play a song that combined elements of all four. It was impossible to take your eyes off him.
The numerous highlights included a Beatles medley, Classical Gas, Angelina, Deep River Blues, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Secret Love, Today Is Mine (sung a capella) and Blood Brother, a composition that has evidently struck a chord with many of his fans. He did a touching version of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt and, with his guest, singer Anthony Snape, performed Burn For You and Jeff Buckley's Grace and, solo again, played One Day by his friend, Martin Taylor.
Russell Leadbetter
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article