Trip Down Kennedy Lane

Still on CD's... I've just found a CD of the "Kennedy Experience". This is Nigel Kennedy when he stopped playing Vivaldi and began playing Hendrix. I'd totally forgotten we had that! We actually saw Nigel Kennedy performing it live years ago back in the days when he still lived in Malvern.

He used to play gigs at one of the local pubs. A friend of ours lived nearby and tipped us off when the "He's playing Saturday" rumours would go round. We saw him a couple of times and he was AWESOME, so when we heard that he was playing a proper concert in the local Community Centre we rushed to get tickets. He played two concerts. The first night was classical, the second night was Hendrix.

I don't think there was seating. We certainly didn't sit! Everyone seemed to be hanging about towards the back of the hall. Stephen scanned the room and said "Sod that, we're going to the front". I imagine people were thinking of the possible hearing impairment, and not wanting to stand in front of the banks of amplifiers, but we laughed in the face of tinnitus and went for the full on Kennedy Experience! We were right at the front. I mean RIGHT at the front. Close enough that Nigel Kennedy dripped sweat on us!! Close enough that my ears rang for days afterwards. It was amazing!

Watching an undoubted musical genius play the violin (he even got the Strad out at one point), inspired Stephen the genius guitarist to go "Pah. I could do that. I'm going to learn to play violin. It'll be easy. I play guitar. Its a transferable skill." I can tell you right now that it is most certainly NOT a transferable skill! Not even close! I bought him a violin for Christmas and after a few days of unspeakable cat torturing noises it was put away in its case and never mentioned again!!