Andy McKee, YouTube sensation, culminating in over forty million views in which he displayed his unequalled and prodigious technique playing his song ‘Drifting’. This was before the corporates got their hands all over YouTube and started creating sensations by ‘clocking’ and feigning play counts for their own fiscally incentivised morals.
Tonight Andy is playing to a full capacity crowd at Oran Mor in Glasgow’s West End.
To witness the extraordinaire tapping his way through a set that involves swinging both arms from left to right, double tapping, and also using the guitar as a versatile piece of equipment, incorporating percussive elements in to the mix – is something that really has to be seen in person to fully appreciate the technicalities.
For a live crowd to see something of this ilk live is, not only a slightly different affair, but also proving that these performances have not been the result of copious takes to achieve the ultimate take online – to show that Andy McKee’s musicianship is a well practiced and ‘almost-effortlessly’ enjoyable experience not only for the crowd; but also for himself.
McKee’s delivery is meticulously spotless; it is a spectacle that is not fully appreciated until experienced in real time, with agilely exquisite finger movements and elaborate compositions in which the tangibility in being face-to-face with McKee’s talent, makes it that much more appreciative.
With techniques ranging from complex double finger pressing mixed with, harmonics, alternating hand movements and myriad altered tuning; he is clearly the forerunner for starting the double tapping revolution.
It can be argued that guitarists’ like Joe Satriani (‘Day at the Beach’) and other Mafioso’s such as Steve Vai have been on to this type of playing for many years now – but they merely flirted with ‘touch-and-go’ ideas that never quite took the “fingerstyle” playing as far as McKee; as he took it to a whole level; a different strata.
Alternating between his baritone and fanned fret guitars, affords the creation of different tonal attributes from the array of guitars at McKee’s disposal, including percussive and acoustic elements.
The tracks from his latest album Joyland sound great with title song, ‘Blue Liquid’, and ‘Hunter’s Gathering’ all sounding spectacular.
Andy McKee’s acoustic guitar can approximate the polyrhythmic interplay of a percussion ensemble, the harmonic sweep of a string section, the dazzling runs of a bluegrass doghouse bass-and-banjo duo, and virtually anything else his pastoral compositions and tasteful covers require.
Seeing is believing – and indeed that was the case tonight.
Sheer class.
Words: Derek Robertson
