ARTHUR LEE and LOVE - Pumpehuset, København 5/17/02


From Aural Innovations #20 (July 2002)

Normally, I would probably not go to see this band but as some of my friends play in the band On Trial, and they have covered two of Arthur's songs ("Signed DC" and "House Is Not A Motel") and consider him a huge influence, I thought I should go. I knew about 20 people going. I talked with a lot of folks and there was a great crowd, perhaps 400. He was here about 6 years ago and I had heard from some that it was quite horrible. The band played the songs well but he was very mixed up and forgot a lot of the words and it was pretty sad. Others said he was amazing. Well, tonight, it was quite excellent and he was a load of fun. His backing band were not even born when his first LP came out in 1966 but they played great and all had a good time. Arthur came out and took off his coat and looked around to see if everything was ok on the stage, even had to check to make sure all the band was there. People were laughing... then they started.

Man, he has a cool voice and sings with passion. I did not know very many of the songs but they were pretty cool and there were three where the guitar player pretty much did as long solos as he wanted to, which was cool. I heard people yelling Hej Joe, but he never played it. He did play songs like "Signed DC", "House Is Not A Motel", "She Comes In Colours", "My Little Red Book", "Colored Balls Falling", "You'll Be Following", "Singing Cowboy", etc. He played about 90 minutes. Quite fun. He said he was really tired but came out for like three encores. This was the second show of the Europe tour (first was in Odense, Denmark) the night before. After the show was over (11), the whole band came out and was walking around and signing autographs, etc... All very cool California guys. I even said hello and shook Arthur's hand. Nice guy. They said they would be back in August-Sept with strings and harp. Sounds strange and new agey or something.

Reviewed by Scott Heller


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