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by: Bruce Fessier
The annual music festival at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden has had five different names or title sponsors in the past five years. But this weekend’s Wedbush Garden Jam will be remembered as a shred fest.
Some of the most brilliant guitarists in rock and blues, including Lukas Nelson of Promise of the Real, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Jimmie Vaughan (older brother of Stevie Ray) and Buddy Guy, an eight-time Grammy Award-winning blues legend, put on a fireworks show Friday and Saturday after local guitarists Kal David and John Carey showed they can hold their own with any gunslinger coming to town.
A star for much of the weekend was Toby Lee, a 14-year-old British guitarist who has been called “a future superstar of the blues” by Joe Bonamassa.
Lee, who is appearing on Peter Frampton’s next album, played both evenings on a second stage with David, Carey and session guitarist “Mic Dangerously” De La Torre.
Nelson brought Lee to the main stage Friday night to play Stevie Ray Vaughan’s blues classic, “Flooding Down in Texas,” which Nelson turned into a highlight of the 2017 Stagecoach festival when he played it with his dad, Willie Nelson. This time, Lee proved an equal partner to the 30-year-old Nelson by not trying to upstage him, but just listening for ideas to bounce back. They both got a standing ovation.
But Nelson elevated his game on his next song, “Set Me Down On A Cloud.” It didn’t call for a scorching guitar solo, like “Flooding Down in Texas,” but Nelson added a beautiful, evocative solo that was simply inspiring.
His set delivered on the promise of the real music he’s been playing with his band for a dozen years. Nelson opened with “Come Live the Simple Life,” which featured a Neil Young-styled attacking guitar solo and a plaintive vocal showing his genetic heritage as well as the influence of playing as Young’s back-up band. He also displayed Willie’s finger-picking guitar style on the equally expository “Just Outside of Austin.”
Lukas explained how he came up with the guitar intro on the Oscar and Grammy Award-winning Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga song, “Shallow,” for which he gave most of the songwriting credit to Mark Ronson’s “team.” Then Hunter Elizabeth came on to sing the Gaga part and, after a rough start, got to heaven on the high notes to give that beautiful song its due.
Nelson played a little hoe-down music on “Stay A Little Longer,” got the crowd to sing along on the catchy refrain to “Find Yourself” and had them absolutely silent for his “Turn Off the News,” in which he urged listeners to instead focus on raising their kids to be good people,” providing another example of his old soul.