Tuesday Tunes: Midnight Express
It’s time for a little guitar heroism.
Extreme are a hair-rock band best known for that acoustic ballad often murdered by teenaged boys (I did my part. Did you?), “More Than Words”. Five years later, their fourth album, Waiting For The Punchline included this brilliant little acoustic instrumental.
As in instrumental.
Nuno Bettencourt has fast, fast fingers of the kind that aren’t often matched to such a melodic style. On “Midnight Express” he gets the speed out of an acoustic guitar by — if I remember correctly — tuning down a step to slacken the strings off a bit. That also adds to the nice percussive tone of the track.
This one I didn’t even try to learn how to play, although a guy I was at school with did make a credible stab at it.
On the album recording, after music ends, you can hear a very self-satisfied laugh. Fair enough :D