Terry Bozzio: An Evening With and Live in Japan 2007

A solo show on
percussion, more musical
than most full rock bands.

I had the pleasure of seeing drummer Terry Bozzio perform live in Fort Worth's intimate McDavid Studio this past Friday on his An Evening With Terry Bozzio tour. For my first concert in years, other than my boys' school band concerts, I was not disappointed.

During a 2-hour, 2-set performance, Bozzio wove together rock, Carribean, African, and Southeast Asian performances in a seamless and enthralling and often unbelievable display of musicality and technical virtuosity. There were times when you thought an entire ensemble was performing due to his ability to give voice to what usually sits in the back of the band - the drum set. And to call his kit simply a "drum set" is a disservice as the photo below shows.

Panorama of Bozzio's drumset (sorry for the choppiness).

Lest you think he's compensating by performing behind an uncountable number of instruments (his drum tech afterward said it takes 3 hours to set the whole thing up each night) twice during the performance he came up front and played a chorded drum machine (looked like a practice pad you play with your hands) and what was basically a box that he sat on and tapped out a 10 minute performance accompanied by bells he attached to his feet.

Maybe you know him from his 1980s work with Missing Persons or his work with Zappa, U.K., Tony Levin and many others. But to get to know him as a consummate percussionist the CD Live in Japan 2007 (which I purchased at the show) gives you a pretty good taste of what we experienced a couple of days ago. Or you could check out the video below.

Terry's website is http://terrybozzio.com/ and the website for his artwork (yes, he's a painter and inventor in addition to being a musician) is http://terrybozzioart.com/.

I received no compensation of any kind for this review.