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Without further ado here is what I saw:
Harpal Mudhar
(Young drummer of the year – 2007)
I missed most of his set as I wanted to see how Thomas Lang was doing in the Mike Dolbear suite but this young guy has sufficient skill and chops to impress anyone. Watch out for him in the future.
I think that Drummerlive are to be commended in their efforts to introduce new talents to the drumming world through this annual opening slot.
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Andrew Small
Andrew is warm guy with incredible groove. He is the business end of the drumming world, the consummate reliable groovy session drummer. It’s no wonder names such as Kylie Minogue, Des’ree, Jamelia and Massive Attack have him on their call list. He played solid grooves throughout his set without having to resort to endless solos. Definitely visit his website: www.andrewsmall.net
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Jungle Drummer
I missed much of his show due to wandering around the show floor and grabbing a pie for lunch. His genre is not much to my taste I’ll admit. I can’t stand MCs. What I did hear at the end was fairly impressive.
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Walfredo Reyes Jr.
This is an amazing drummer. A latin legend with up to date chops and a sound all of his own. His cowbell work is legendary, his patterns so cleverly executed that often he sounds like two drummers or more. Unfortunately I enjoyed his show so much that I took less photos than I ordinarily would have. He was just so engrossing. Nice guy too.
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Ronald Bruner Jr.
Definitely my favourite performer over the whole weekend. His father, who I had a little chat with, has every reason to be proud. ‘I just gave him really difficult passages from the Mahavishnu Orchestra when he was younger,’ said senior, ‘I didn’t tell him they were hard and so he assumed they were normal.’
Ron played such intense fills that the crowd hooted and whistled after each one. This guy has a double bass technique at least as strong as Derek Roddy’s. His grooves are so tasty and his showmanship was second to none on the day.He grins, grimaces and sticks his tongue out so expressively that it’s a show in of itself. He plays and audience as well as he plays a kit.
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Gerald Heyward
This guy’s call list reads like a who’s who in the R’nB world and it’s no wonder. He was simply fabulous. He was one of the few performers on the weekend that inserted some clinic in his show. He had a two-piece kit set up side on to the audience to demonstrate his unbelievable single pedal technique and to show how important groove is and what can be done with such a small set up if you think musically.
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Thomas Lang
Following Gerald and Ronald would have been hard for most folks, but not Thomas. This giant dominates his super Roland kit. You’d have to be a humming bee to catch his footwork. His music was mean and heavy and spellbinding - what you come to expect from the man if you’ve seen his DVDs.
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Steve White
A drumming gentleman with great grooves. His band played one cool piece after another with the solid rhythmic foundation of Mr. White. And just when you think you’ve nailed down what kind of drummer Steve is he then goes on to shatter any pigeon holing by playing awesome cowbell patterns that I’m sure would interest Steve Gadd fans.
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Derek Roddy
As I walked into the main stage area during Derek’s sound check on Saturday morning I thought they were having a problem with bass feedback, until I realised that the chest shaking subwoofer rumble was Derek’s tremendous footwork. His show was awesome. Unbelievable as it may sound, he was even better in real life now that the dude you’ve all seen on youtube. This guy is versatile. He goes from hell shaking blasting metal to smooth jazz and tasty swing to complex latin and back again all the while grimacing wonderfully for the cameras.
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Wolfgang Haffner
Bernhard introduced him to me as the friendliest German I’ll ever meet. His groovy performance was split halfway with him coming forward and doing an unusual solo with two child’s whistle mallets. He spoke about the showmanship side of drumming and how important it is to smile while you play and enjoy it - which is ironic because he was very serious for most of his set. But we can forgive him this as a lot of his drumming put smiles on our faces.
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Nicko McBrain
What can you say about this man that has not been said deservedly a thousand times before. His nod to Bonham was, as ever, brilliant. His MC work over the weekend as much a part of drummerlive tradition as the continuous roar of the showroom floor. His band were as usual superb. It was simply a treat I would have paid the whole ticket price to see by itself. Cheers Niko.
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Cindy Blackman
Cindy came on with a huge open unmuffled kit that literally roars at you. Her first twenty-minute solo was edgy and explorative and grew in quality as she warmed to the mesmerised crowd. She is without doubt the most unique sounding drummer of the whole weekend (a hard thing to achieve these days). I asked her to play here favourite Kravitz groove and she obliged me wonderfully with that towering snare drum backbeat she is a past master of. (I couldn’t hear the name of the song she played for me because I was over on stage right by the woofers). Ian chose well to close the weekend with this legendary cool drummer.
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My thanks go out to all the drummers that made it such and awesome weekend and in particular to Yoda (a.k.a Ian Croft - editor of Drummer magazine) for the passes.
May the tradition of celebrating drumming last long and grow ever better.
And thanks to Bernhard ... you know what for.
Jason and Agi
Next Year:
We look forward to seeing you all in June next year when Drummer Live happens again as part of the The London International Music Show. The layout remains the same, The show name remains but the event becomes part of an international event staged for the the first time in the UK. One ticket gets you into the entire show and its on for four days!See you at ExCeL on 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th June 2008. (from http://www.drummerlive.co.uk/)
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