Uli Jon Roth - Why (Atlanta 2019)

Uli Jon Roth
City Tavern
Atlanta, GA
May 6, 2019

5th song of the Atlanta show. "Why?" is from Uli's 3rd and final Electric Sun record, BEYOND THE ASTRAL SKIES (1985).

Unfortunately, this was the last song I was able to capture with the benefit of my Canon Vixia's zoom lens, as the battery became too depleted to use for further songs. :(

I'm thankful that I chose to see Uli Jon Roth last night. He's been one of my main guitar heroes and is in a class all of his own. At age 64, Uli is still an absolutely brilliant guitar player and his playing is perfectly described as "sublime". His technical prowess never feels like showboating. Instead, it's like he's transmitting waves of emotion and spiritual understanding, like a hard rock guru of some sort. Watching him play in person made me realize all of these little insights about how I could "up my game" as a guitar player.

Some people have remarked that he looked like a bit of a "wizard" with his headband and occasional hand movements that it made it seem like he was conjuring the notes from his guitar. Yes, he IS a guitar wizard and true master of the instrument. What a beautiful tone and such expressive phrasing. His guitar solos make you feel like you are soaring or gliding through the cosmos.

He exuded the same kind of warmth and love his audience that Glenn Hughes put forth just a few weeks ago at his Centerstage show. These are legends who fully understand the value of their gift and still having the opportunity to share it on the world stage.

He played two sets last night, the first of which covered highlights from his solo career, but did also include the Scorpions song "Sun In My Hand". He played for about 70 minutes before taking a break and playing another full set of Scorpions classics. He was honoring the anniversary of the Scorpions live album TOKYO TAPES and played a selection of songs from that record. He closed the show with my favorite, "The Sails Of Charon".

The show was held at this really posh restaurant / bar / music venue called City Winery. With all of the dinner tables and high brow ambiance, it didn't feel like a place to see a rock concert. It was actually a pretty intimate place to see a show, even if the food and drink was on the pricey side.

I also didn't realize that my table was so much closer to the stage than it looked on the venue map. It was disappointing to see that there were probably less than 100 people there to see him last night, but those who came were richly rewarded. It was good to see Radu Pop & his friend Jimmy Petrar, Joff Braio, Alex Parra and Krystal Turner, Dan Ratansit, and Ross Albert at the show.

The staff didn't seem to care about people capturing the show, so I was able to bring in all of my better gear to preserve the evening for posterity, including a proper HD camera (Canon Vixia 1080P) with a optical zoom lens AND a ZOOM H4 field recorder for the audio (96 kHz!). I had some minor technical difficulties, but thankfully had enough back up gear (2 smartphones) that I didn't miss a second of the show. I'll will post some samples as soon as I can. (Too much footage, too little editing time!)