Interesting you should say that, because I've been a huge fan for nearly 35 years and while I love still hearing those occasional flashes of genius in his licks and comping I also fear he may be getting slightly jaded with his own performances. The quotations, for example, seem to have become a bit of a gimmick. For me, Bireli is at his absolute best, and unsurpassed, when playing laid back, sparse phrases but the barreling up and down and showboating seem unnecessary. Pardon Biréli!

Yes, he is at a different level musically here even than 2 years ago. The Benedetto helps too, nice guitar.

@@kubagalinski8724 Hi. Yours is * also * an interesting comment to me, and equally intriguing as the previous opinion because I happen to only recently have become aware of Benedetto guitars by stumbling on the channel of a, in my opinion criminally-underrated, jazz guitar player called Barry Greene, whose tone on the Benedetto and bebop lines are effortlessly sweet and groovy and, I think, worthy of note, so to speak. I had not actually clocked that Bireli was using a Benedetto here, so thanks for pointing that out, but the paradox for me, and the reason I am responding, is that I also thought something sounded not quite up to par with his * guitar * in these concert clips...I can't quite put my finger on it, but maybe a combination of the plinky-plonk tone (my very scientific terminology) with too much reverb and not enough low-end and the conditions causing it to be slightly out of tune? Bireli's wincing and fiddling with the tuning mid-song seem to confirm this, wouldn't you say? (...and for once, the retuning wasn't part of the performance...a party trick which I'm afraid I'm also finding a bit worn out these days!) 🤐🤔 Once again, I would apologise to the man himself for my candid opinions, and I am one of his biggest fans.

@@nicknelson9450 Well, Bireli is clearly not a tech guy and usually plays with a pretty dry tone, maybe it comes from the fact that he plays the acoustic guitar so much, he doesn't think about tone. I like his sound here just fine. You know, everybody is entitled to their opinion, but I think for a man 60 years of age to be completely on top of his game in both technique and creativity, it's something astonishing to see.

One of the settings of an Octaver pedal ;-)

Sounds like a pedal. No whammy bar.