Aaah, Ten Years After...A very special band for me. Not because we share a love for the blues, nor because they embody the myth of the sixties with their incendiary Woodstock appearance and rebel songs like "I'd like to change the world". Neither for the fact that Alvin Lee is the most underrated guitar hero ever. That's all true, of course, but my reason is much more personal: Ten Years After is the first rock concert I ever witnessed, back in 1988. It was a magical moment, actually standing a few meters from a great rock band - one that had played Woodstock no less - and witnessing their music being made, Lee's fingers moving up and down the fretboard and the sound of his electric guitar filling the air through those big speakers... The place where the concert took place was an unexpected one - the annual Fall festival of KNE - Odigitis (Greek Communist Youth and its official magazine)! I know the Americans among you cringe at the thought, probably recalling images from North Korean parades, goose-stepping soldiers and students in kitschy folk uniforms waving red flags. Well, it wasn't quite like that - except of course from the red flags, there was an abundance of those... Actually, the Greek Communist Party of that time was very popular in the artistic circles and the KNE festival was their chance to invite many big name sympathizers from the music and theater world and allow people to see some high quality shows for a very low price. You would be right, nevertheless, to assume that the Communist Party officially despised Rock. Folk was good. Jazz and Blues was OK, it was the expression of the oppressed minorities in the imperialist U.S.A. Rock, on the other hand, was a sign of Western decadence - it led to drug use, free sex and delinquency. At least such was the official party line until then. But by 1988 things had started to change. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had promised more openness and was carrying out a "charm offensive" towards the West. Remote-controlled by Moscow as they were, the Greek communist leaders decided to go with the times and allow KNE to open the doors of its festival to rock. Serendipitously, Ten Years After had just reformed and were on tour. Somebody in KNE must have heard their "tax the rich, feed the poor" slogan and found it a worthy sentiment. (If so, he failed to ask his instructor: It is a reformist slogan and reformists are a true communist's worse enemy, after anarchists and trotskyists of course). So, half hour before the concert was programmed to begin, a throng of leather-and-denim clad rockers started to flood the grounds of the festival like a bunch of hooligans crashing someone's birthday party. They looked rather uneasily at the unfamiliar surroundings: Lenin posters, huge red banners, book fairs, podiums with folk singers and political agitators. And they did receive some dirty looks from some commie festival goers. But, miraculously, it was perhaps the first time in Greece that a rock concert did not end in chaos, riots and tear gas (a venerable tradition started by the very first Athens rock festival, a 1967 Rolling Stones concert violently broken up by the police). Ten Years After spread their positive vibrations around, everyone had a great time and went home smiling and with their head full of music - me, first and foremost...
Now, to the album at hand... It came out in 1971 and was Ten Years After's sixth and best-selling album. For those familiar with the band's style, it's a bit of a departure: Less bluesy and less reliant on lengthy solos showcasing Lee's extraordinary dexterity at the electric guitar, it contains many acoustic numbers, psychedelic sound effects and studio tricks. Opener "One of These Days" is a heavy blues song a la Cream with stellar guitar and harp work by Lee."Here They Come" is a ballad featuring spacey studio effects as befits a song forseeing the coming of extra-terrestrials (they had some strong acid, back then). "I'd Love to Change the World" is, rightly, their greatest hit and one of the defining singles of he sixties (although released in the 70's). Beautiful acoustic guitar and soft choruses are juxtaposed with harder passages featuring fiery electric guitar, a combination reminiscent of Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". The lyrics covey the confusion of a young man acknowledging the wrongs of the world around him and unsure of how to change it (no such confusion for the young festival goers listening to the concert, though: Join the Party, follow the leaders, demolish capitalism and bring about communism - what's there to think about?). "Over the Hill" is a whimsical piece of 60's psychedelia with a Sgt.Pepper-style string section."Baby Won't You Let Me Rock 'n' Roll You" is one of those TYA specialties, wild rock and roll with lightning speed guitar solos. "Once There was a Time" is a country rocker that curiously reminds me of Jack White. "Let the Sky Fall" seems to reprise the riff from "Goodmorning Little Schoolgirl" within the frame of a Floydian psych ballad. The album continues with "Hard Monkeys", an anti-drug electric blues that reminds me of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the inspirational Zeppelin-ish "I've Been There Too", concluding with "Uncle Jam", a jazzy instrumental with boogie woogie piano and Django-like guitar. Overall a great classic rock album featuring a perfect rock ballad. Dedicated to you all: "Everywhere is freaks and hairies/Dykes and fairies/Tell me where is sanity?/Tax the rich/Feed the poor/Till there aren't rich no more/I'd love to change the world/But I don't know what to do/So I'll leave it up to you/Population keeps on breeding/Nation bleeding/Still more feeding economy/Life is funny, skies are sunny/Bees make honey/Who needs money? Monopoly/World pollution/There's no solution/Institution,electrocution/Just black and white/Rich or poor/Them and us/Stop the war/I'd love to change the world/But I don't know what to do/So I'll leave it up to you"
***** for I'd Love to Change the World, Baby Won't You Let Me Rock 'n' Roll You
**** for One of These Days, Let the Sky Fall, I've Been There Too
*** for Here They Come, Over The Hill, Once There Was a Time, Hard Monkeys
** for Uncle Jam
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