When I first heard about Chickenfoot, I didn't have high expectations. It sounded like a bunch of stars had decided to get together to have fun. I thought it might be a vanity project that would promise more than it delivered.
...And then I heard some of the tracks from their CD on Rock Radio. I revised my opinion immediately and every track I heard left me more impressed.
I just noticed the other day that Chickenfoot are offering a widget on their official site so that you can embed their latest video on your site. So here it is: {Update: The widget seemed to be causing me problems - slowing everything down as it loaded and starting to play straight away... so I decided to replace the widget with the YouTube video instead. :-) }
Visit chickenfoot.us for more info
They seem to be having a blast playing together. Hope you enjoy.
5 comments:
Haha, I had almost the complete opposite reaction to Chickenfoot. As a longtime fan of both Van Halen and Joe Satriani, my expectations were through the roof. I remember first hearing about the group sometime last summer and wondering how I would ever be able to contain myself until they released something.
Then this past spring, I heard that they were doing a little warmup tour, essentially playing their entire album plus a few extra songs. When a concert showed up on a private BitTorrent tracker that I frequent, I eagerly downloaded it and queued it up in foobar2000. I don't normally download bootlegs if I don't already own the majority of the artist's albums, but this was a special case - after all, I was certainly going to buy the album when it came out in a week, so a little sneak preview couldn't hurt.
Well, to shorten an already lengthy comment, as the concert played, my opinion of Chickenfoot dropped steadily, and later that night I informed my wife that I didn't want the album anymore. She was shocked, no doubt because I hadn't shut up about this band for nearly a year. I even played some of the songs for her to make sure I wasn't making a mistake, but she agreed with my assessment of the band. It was a bitter disappointment, but oh well - c'est la vie. :) There's still lots of good music out there for me to enjoy.
Hello Jeff
Interesting. I'm not as familiar with Satriani as you seem to be but I was worried he might not gel with the band - that he might stick out with self-indulgent noodley bits. However, he doesn't. He works well with the others and adds just the right amount of flash in his (appropriate) guitar solos. Perhaps it was the anticipation that's spoiled it. From what I've heard of it, it's a really good rock album but if you were expecting it to be beyond perfection...
I think I had a similar problem to you in the late 70s with Rush. It's no secret that I believe them to be the greatest band in the world and A Farewell To Kings was (and probably still is) my favourite album. It closes with the magnificent Cygnus X-1 and, intriguingly, the printed lyrics for this song end with "To be continued..." Needless to say, I couldn't wait for the next album. When it was eventually released, I could barely contain myself on the way home where, at last I could hear Hemispheres. And when at last I did... I was unbelievably dumped. I didn't like it at all. I'm not even sure I turned it over to play the other side. (It was in the days of vinyl!) After I'd calmed down a bit, I did play the other side and was relieved to hear it was much better.
For a long time I only played side 2. It was a good while later before I risked a second listen of side 1 and decided it was not entirely unbearable after all. However, it was many years later when I listened to it once more after a long break that I decided it was actually pretty good. My problem was that Hemispheres carried such a weight of expectation that it was almost inevitably going to be crushingly disappointing.
So, in an equally long reply to your long comment, I'd say, don't give up on Chickenfoot yet. Give it a while to let both your expectation and disappointment diminish, then give them another go. Try to pretend they are a new band that you don't know anything about. I think a few months down the line you too might say, "Actually, that's not too bad!"
Wow, I love the video. It reminds me of the old Sammy Hagar days. He would put on the wildest shows...so fun. Jumping around stage on his CAR and red grand piano, swinging out into the audience on a rope. And he has great hair.
I've been listening to Chickenfoot too and someone gave me tickets for the show! I might even get to meet them. That would be cool.
Hello Barbara
I think the video is great too but as for Sammy's hair - what I want to know is why he still has so much of it? Not even a hint of a baldy bit! It's just not fair. :-)
And I can't let this pass without comment: "...and someone gave me tickets for the show! I might even get to meet them. That would be cool." Now that's the kind of "somebody" I need to meet. How often does "somebody" just happen to give you backstage passes!? I'm afraid your last bit is completely wrong. It is way beyond "cool" and heading rapidly towards absolute zero. :-)
Hope that you enjoy meeting the band. I assume we'll read about it in your blog in due course.
I knew nothing about Chickenfoot until one night in London about 4 months ago. A mate and I and his American visitor were somewhat the worse for a few beers and walking past Shepherd's Bush Empire trying to find a bar open at midnight.
A tour bus was outside with a small gaggle of guys older than me collecting autographs - from, as it turned out, UFO! The had just opened for Chickenfoot.
We found a bar in a posh hotel where our American friend was chatted up by two of the roadies who used the "we're with Chickenfoot" line to try to get into her pants. That's when we decided to look up who they were on Wikipedia. I couldn't believe the names!
However, having suffered such so-called "supergroups" as Velvet Revolver I took them with a pinch of salt. They played at Graspop in June so I did get to catch a bit of them and I wasn't terribly impressed, in honesty. Musically good, but the songs just weren't particularly wonderful. At least Satriani wasn't singing.
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