"The Stealer" then - "I'm a Mover" - Kossoff - The Band Plays On

18 May 2022 at The Musician Leicester:
The band's opening numbers.
So many strong songs in the Free catalogue, they kicked off with these two belters: The Stealer then I'm a Mover.
Guitarist John Buckton has got pretty close to the iconic Paul Kossoff, even bringing along the Les Paul guitar Kossoff used at the Isle of Wight festival. Inexplicably its previous owner had it refurbished so it's all nicely varnished with just the one distinctive marking left to show us what it really is.
John Buckton uses Marshall in the same time-honoured way; very loud with just a bit of flanger/chorus for some of the Backstreet Crawler songs. Interestingly, his rhythm sound is more aggressive than Kossof, who I saw several times in their early days of the Nice Enough to Eat sampler, and as their first album came out on Island Records. Koss didn't think he was any good at rhythm guitar, even though he used the most wonderful inversions and lovely ringing open string chords.
But notably, Kossoff played his Les Paul the "wrong way round" - playing rhythm using the "Treble" pick up setting - on the bridge pick up which is normally used for lead and solos; but switching to the neck pickup - for which the switch setting is "Rhythm". His chords are therefore understated and sweet-sounding, made more so as the guitar is on the lead setting with the volume turned right down. Turning up to solo levels on the "Lead" setting normally gives a Les Paul a really full treble sound that cuts through everything else. But Kossoff tended not to use this - and didn't need it as Free was so well integrated around Koss's leads.
However John Buckton doesn't seem to do this, so his sound is a tad more aggressive than Kossoffs' was. But as was the method back in the day, he does use the volume control as his main controller of tone. And it was clear that he was playing so loud that the overall mix was built around him - with very little of his guitar in the front of house speakers - which is authentic for most of the gigs back in those days. Nevertheless sound engineer Alan Daly managed a very decent balance in the room, although he told me it was louder than he'd have preferred, and that John Buckton's monitor mix of everybody else was exceptionally loud so he could hear them!
A great gig!!!