Woodstock heroes! Ten Years After have seen their name shine endlessly since a beautiful evening of August 1969. Before this lollapalooza, the quartet was formed ten years after the explosion of rock’n’roll (this is the meaning of the band’s name). Our Ten Years After have a creed from the beginning: to stay in the beautiful purity of rock’n’roll and to be immersed in the general feeling of British blues (which quickly makes a boom!).
It is at the famous Marquee Club in London and at the Windsor National Blues and Jazz Festival that guitarist Alvin Lee shows virtuosity and ostentation. Equal to Clapton, Beck, Green or other Page, Lee is this guitar hero (on his eternal Gibson 335) adored for his technicality and his speed. Ten Years After are more agile and swing than many other bands. More psychedelic and mysterious too. They have no cause to be envious of Cream and that bunch of dirty kids called Led Zeppelin.
With “I’m Going Home”, TYA have a unifying anthem that lead them through the mud of the mythical Festival. The 70s are a bit rough with the band and his guitar hero even if the last Nottingham fellow who would cooperate never loosens the grip.
After a legendary gig at the Boogie Town Festival in Louvain-la-Neuve in May 1999 where we saw the original line-up one last time (Alvin Lee, Chick Churchill, Leo Lyons, Ric Lee) Ten Years After reinvent themselves (Alvin Lee disappeared in 2013) with a stable line-up since 2014: Ric Lee and Chick Churchill crossed swords with bassist Colin Hodgkinson (Alexis Korner, Chris Rea, Whitesnake, Jon Lord, Jan Hammer, The Spencer Davis Group…) and with Italian/London guitarist Marcus Bonfanti (Ginger Baker, Eric Burdon and a remarkable solo career). This madman of Rory Gallagher, BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughan is not afraid of anything and especially not of ghosts.
Ten Years After return to the Chênée Cultural Center after a memorable gig there in 2009. Aren’t legends eternal?
