Dick Dale

[Rocker]

I just come home from watching Dick Dale in concert. That guy is awesome !!
He played guitar, harmonica, trumpet, bass and drums. He played rhythm on bass while his bass-player played lead (all on the same bass!!), he did the same with the drums and then played bass with the drum sticks ! See this to get an idea (unfortunately video and sound are not totally in sync, it's not my video btw) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9A7oFInJoo

He's not your nice guy, he's a real rocker (I like that name btw).
If Mike and Bruce are pretending to be a "surf band", then I saw the real king of surf tonight and he ain't no nostalgia act. If you get a chance, go and see him, but take care of your ears.

[Roger Ryan]

I agree that Dale is amazing. He wasn't doing the drum/bass bit when I last saw him about six years ago, so that might be something he's added more recently. It's incredible to think that this guy was near death with colon cancer in '66 (his chances for recovery were slim), but is still rocking 40 years later. It's also incredible to think that he didn't even start touring proper until the early 1990s. All hail King of The Surf Guitar.

[Exapno Mapcase]

What's he now? 70? Older?

[Rocker]

69 as far as I know.

[Amanda Hart]

Bumping this old thread since I saw Dick Dale last night...

It was a great show. Like in the show Rocker saw, Dale played harmonica, bass, drums and did the trick stuff in addition to playing some amazing guitar. His style is so unique, it's really something to see.

Unfortunately, the show itself was marred by technical problems, so there was an hour of downtime between the opener (a great local band I hadn't seen before) and Dick Dale's band. When they finally took the stage they played one song, and had to stop because the microphones weren't set up right. So, we got about 15 minutes of Old Man Story Time, which is one of the best parts of seeing an eccentric old musician. Once they got that fixed, they started playing again, and for about another hour, the band would do 2 songs or so, and some other technical problem would crop up. The wireless receiver for the guitars stopped working, an amp blew and there was a lot of unexplained buzzing and feedback all night. All of this led to a lot of downtime, so we heard a lot of stories from Dale, ranging from the mundane about his wife feeding coyotes on their property to really interesting stuff about working with Leo Fender. I enjoyed it, but the crowd started to get really restless and you could tell all the talking and stopping/starting was hurting Dale's voice and hands.

All told they were on stage for about 2 hours. Of course he did all of his famous stuff, and some great covers. There was a 50s medley that was pretty cool and a blazing version of "House of the Rising Sun". Technical issues aside, don't miss your opportunity to see guys like this!