That DeLucia DeMeola tune sounded way flat, emotionally. It happens so often in the "reunion" setting, when a group hasn't played together for a long spell and the desire to not screw up overrides their ferocity. I was pretty, umm, fanatically deep into that trio, and I though by any standard that their two studio albums were far better than the first live one. 1983 - Passion Grace & Fire, and the 1996 one simply titled Paco De Lucia AlDiMeola John McLaughlin. McLaughlin was the torch in there, anyway. De Meola's strongest point has always been his compositions, and he knew it, playing around those two. Here's one of his from the 1983 album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os67CB5Suls
I saw these guys in 1983 - in Austin TX, which even then had something of a rep as a "guitar town." They left no head unfried.... I had to get up and walk around the lobby a few times because they were INSIDE MY BRAIN
Steve Morse was opening. There is a fine, fine representative show on sugarmegs.org, there's actually about five of them but this one... they'll crawl inside YOUR HEAD if you're not careful:
http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/AlDiMeolaJohnMcLaughlinPacoDeLucia1983-09-30BostonOperaHouseMA.asx
It's even OK to skip over Morse (to 22:00), which I wouldn't normally advocate, but the fireworks, zow. I LOVE bands where they're all cosmically united into the one brotherhood stuff, but politely trying to rip each other's heads off too. :guitaristgif: