Ramblings of a Redhead Music Snob

Johnny Marr & The Healers
Alamar
The Fillmore
April 13, 2013

Johnny F**kin Marr, as his tshirt states, is a force to be reckoned with. An already great show went over the greatness by the time the encore hit. So I’ll just start there as its too impossible to still not be reliving. Johnny starts telling a story of growing up in Manchester and at age 13 meeting some really amazing kids. And one kid, in particular, is in a band and had made it. The others, yeah not so much. This kid turned out to be Billy Duffy, guitarist of the Cult. These long-time friends had never played a stage together before tonight. And, honestly, they need to do it more often as this was melt your face off unf’ingbelievable.

The two of them (both guitar gods as far as Im concerned) performed one hell of a version of the Clash’s ‘I Fought the Law’. It was powerful and full of raw energy. Johnny let Billy take the spotlight and on his white guitar he tore it up. The two of them continued into a really rocked out version of ‘How Soon is Now’. The song has never sounded so amplified with so many guitars filling up the room. It was awesome and one hell of a way to close out the set.

And for those interested in their friendship – and random factoids – there is a great interview here.

Prior to that insane encore, the set itself was beyond great. Johnny Marr & The Healers are a great band. While its clear that this is Johnny’s band, he seems to really like working with his band. The guys looked quite young but all seemed to be having a great time. It would be hard not to. Johnny Marr is charismatic and charming. He thanked SF quite a bit, and spoke of the acupuncture he had done. He had lots of chi in him and apparently it really helped on his guitar solos.

The songs off his solo album sounded really great and fresh. And had a very current sound. They use a lot of guitars, but it never sounds too heavy. The Smiths songs received huge applause and everyone sang along. ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ sounded every bit as great as The Smiths. While at first it was a bit odd to hear Johnny sing these songs, (he doesnt have Morrissey’s moodiness nor vocals), he did sound quite great overall.

Johnny Marr is an unbelievably talented guy. He still has the boyish good looks so reminiscent of English bands. Its pretty amazing to watch him and remember how many bands he’s been in and how talented he truly is. I was fortunate to having seen him play with Modest Mouse. Its easy to forget that he was also in Electronic and The The and even toured with the Cribs. It makes sense then that NME gave him the godlike genius award.

One hell of an amazing show. Yeah, that sums it up!

Theres not many guitar gods out there anymore so if you can still see him, you owe it to yourself to not miss this show.