Live Music in Chiang Mai

I reunited with Heidi with many hugs and kisses and misses. After spending the day showing me all of the venues she had scoped out for me, she insisted that we go to the Brasserie and watch a to-die-for musician. We arrive at the bar a little after 11. It is just getting started. There is a small band stage set up where a young

Thai guy with an afro is wailing on the guitar. He is playing the blues, really playing the blues, and moaning baby baby baby. I am already blown away by his voice. His eyes were half closed in a sort of musical ecstasy. I could tell he was really listening to his music and was not mentally present on this stage in front of the crowded bar. I sat outside and listened to his set, already amazed and excited to see someone who has an ear for the blues.

After the set, another young Thai guitarist came on stage, but the rest of the band stayed put. This guy started playing classic rock. He was equally as talented, but different. Same, same, but different. He jammed out of his guitar, and Heidi and I joked about how his expression looked like he was climaxing.

About halfway through the set a tall skinny Thai man appeared on stage. In the midst of a song he quietly and humbly strapped himself to his guitar and began strumming back-up. This was what the crowd has been waiting for, this guitar maestro who has once toured with Bob Dylan. The young Thai guy backed off and Tuk began wailing, strumming, picking, jiving. I have never heard anything like it. Although it sounds sacrilegious, I felt like I was in the presence of the great one and only Jimi Hendrix. He was that good. He just rocked and rocked, breaking strings, stringing up new guitars, wailing, playing all of the classics, but with a twist. My eardrums undulated in delight, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of his fingers. The whole crowd became mesmerized with his amazing finger picking, silent only until a break allowed roaring applaud. The walls reverberated with so loudly with guitar solo that the whole bar threatened to buckle under the melody. I finally realized the Hendrix album name “Are you experienced” must be titled thus due to the incomparable sensation one experiences when they watch such a master of music. Who would have thought such a musical gem was hiding out in a little bar in no-where-ville Thailand?