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Phil Lesh

#2
DblG said:
One of my favorite bassists.
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Phil Lesh is one of those guys who, if he never played a note and just gave interviews where he talked about playing bass, I'd be his biggest fan: The whole way he describes his approach to the instrument, its function, his whole attitude and willingness to investigate atypical avenues for bass playing, it all comes across as a kindred spirit, someone whose vision of music I would really dig

...and then I listen to his playing and I think "Huh? That's it? What happened to all the cool ideas?"
 
#4
Hoover said:
Phil Lesh is one of those guys who, if he never played a note and just gave interviews where he talked about playing bass, I'd be his biggest fan: The whole way he describes his approach to the instrument, its function, his whole attitude and willingness to investigate atypical avenues for bass playing, it all comes across as a kindred spirit, someone whose vision of music I would really dig

...and then I listen to his playing and I think "Huh? That's it? What happened to all the cool ideas?"
Click to expand...

it takes an above average attention span to dig what phil does. the gd could sound from awesome to atrocious but ya know what? phil was usually on, so blame the other dudes ;)

on the stuff I've heard by phil & friends (not a very good band imo) and the current dead tour (better than i expected but still not worth 100 bucks a ticket haha), phil's playing is the one element that consistently sounds great

that said, he's not much of a pocket player is he?
 
#7
I'll chime in. I've always digged Phil's playing, mostly his very melodic approach to the bass line. My guitar player buddy and I caught the Dead last Sunday in Greensboro. Good show, but Phil was NOWHERE near loud enough. Sometimes you couldn't even hear him. About halfway through the second set it sounded like they brought him up in the mix, but for most of the show a lot of the low end wasn't there. But it really was cool to see the Ritter bass all lit up on the dark stage when they came out!
 
#9
Check out this Phil and Friends show... rocks!

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I caught the Verizon Center show in DC. normally that place sounds horrible, they had it dialed in perfectly. Phill's tone cut right through. No boomy low end, but very piano like clarity. This tour (or at least that show) they jammed a lot. They approached it with a very minimlistic attitude. Less is more. At one point Phil took a vocal lead in Peggy-o and completely stopped playing his bass, but it sounded great!
 
#10
I saw Phil with his Ritter last summer and he was WAY too quiet as well. It wasn't the acoustics either, the venue sounded amazing. IMO it might be that the Ritter just doesn't cut through well. I could hear the highs occassionally crunching through, but it sounded kinda mushy. When I saw him with his Modulus, his tone was very clear.
 

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