The Gov, Sunday 28thJuly 2019
(Reviewed by John Glennie)
Adelaide’s-own Orianthi was here for a home-visit and did a one-off gig at The Gov. The US-based platinum selling artist has an incredible reference having played with the world’s best – including Carlos Santana, Steve Vai, Prince, Michael Jackson, ZZ Top, Joe Bonamassa and Richie Sambora. Her guitar shredding skills and rock/blues vocals certainly rocked The Gov on Sunday night.
She flewhome direct from Canada after performing at Roxodus, Ontario’s Epic 4-day Rock Festival featuring Alice Cooper, Nickelback,Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith, Kid Rock and many other rock greats.
Orianthi also made history touring the world for four years as Alice Cooper’s first female guitarist. ‘I loved touring with Alice. I admire his talent and longevity as an artist – Alice gives 110% every night,’ Orianthi said. Alice was equally complimentary of his touring guitarist. ‘Orianthi killed it every night, twenty-eight solos and standing ovations. She is one of the best female rock guitarists in the world.’
Orianthi has performed at both the American and Latin Grammy Awards, the 50th Country Music Awards and the Kennedy Honors for Carlos Santana as he was honoured for his lifetime contribution to American performing arts culture.
Focusing on new solo music, Nashville has been her home away from home as she wrote and recorded with Grammy winning producer, Marti Frederiksen. This album which will be released later this year, is a return to her rock and blues roots with unique guitar riffs and versatile, rich vocals featuring on every track.
At heart Orianthi is a staggeringly dexterous player, capable of mastering next to any style and out shredding anyone — Guitar Planet Magazine
Enough of the official stuff – onto the show! Streaker opened the evening – bit of a tentative start with what I think were a couple of original songs. They really hit their straps when they launched into some great covers of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple. I overheard someone when leaving the gig that the band is headed by Orianthi’s brother. Great start for the night!
Orianthi wowed the crowd with some of the best tracks from her debut album Believeincluding Bad News(one of my faves!), What’s It Gonna Be, and Think Like a Man. These tracks were interspersed with greats from her second album including the title track Heaven In This Hell, Frozen(another favourite of mine) and How Do You Sleep.
The sound mix was pretty ordinary for the first few tracks as we couldn’t really hear her vocals. Thankfully this was eventually rectified. Speaking of vocals, her backup singer had an outstanding voice (don’t know her name) and I would love to hear her take the lead vocal on some of the tracks!
Midway through the set, Orianthi said she was in her kitchen in the U.S. when she heard some amazing guitar-shredding on the television in her lounge. When she looked, was amazed to see a then 9-year old Aussie kid on the Ellen show. We were then treated to now 10-year old Taj Farrant joining Orianthi on stage to show his incredible guitar-work on Filthy Blues. One of several sound hitches meant we couldn’t hear him for a while but once that was resolved everyone was blown away by this kid. He apparently was shown auditioning on Australia’s Got Talent on the same night on TV – check him out on YouTube!!
Orianthi told everyone to get their phones out and record Suffocated and ‘stick it on YouTube’ as we were the first in the world to hear this new track from her forthcoming album. She also said that she will be returning later this year or early 2020 to release the new album – will definitely be at that concert! She followed that song up with an awesome cover of Lenny Kravatz’Are You Gonna Go My Way – though marred by another sound mix glitch which caused her to indicate to the sound crew (in no uncertain terms) to increase the volume on her guitar! This was followed by another new track – Knocking Down The Door which is a tribute to Alice Cooper who took her on board as his lead guitarist when she was trying to break into the big time.
After a couple more tracks and a brief interlude she finished the gig with her first single from BelieveAccording To Youthen her amazing version of Jimi Hendrix’ Voodoo Chile. That last song really highlights here incredible skills – look up Orianthi Voodoo Chile on YouTube to see a much younger Orianthi playing to a massive audience in the USA!
Overall a great night of classic world-leading guitar playing, which I have only marked down because of the sound mix issues. I hope that when she comes back that those problems are well and truly resolved. The band was also excellent but not sure who they were unfortunately – though did overhear someone say that the drummer was her father (but cannot confirm this)!
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