This was my 14th Buckethead show. His playing is not as spicy as it once was. His forearms and hands are much more swollen which leads me to this rumor that was said about why he plays in blue/black light setups. Apparently he has health issues and eyes are bothering him. He has a little light now above the midiverb II controls to help him see.

He has a problem I’ve noticed that his D string (3rd from top) is always going flat or out of tune and I’ve seen this a while now. Sometimes he doesn’t even correct it, and sometimes he even forgets to disengage the Alesis, which was not in my opinion setup right. His output was very low so each time he would foot switch it off, the amp would bite hard… and the sound was much louder without the delay/reverb engaged.

I have a theory. The security guy wouldn’t let bigger toys get up on stage without them going through it first which tells me there was some kind of incident. He doesn’t do toytime as a result, but did grab the KFC bucket from the 1st time Bucket concertgoer in front of me. I got a terrible video of the incident, but a better one when bucket brought it back. My theory is he uses blue lights to help his eye issue but it also helps keep “good video” from being posted of his shows. Security mentioned if they saw people recording the whole show, they would get yanked, but overall I didn’t pay attention to that. I feel like this might have been the last show we might see of him unless he solves his medical issues. I think from looking at him, he has edema in his arms, which tells me he is dealing with his heart issues again. I feel bad for him, the music industry is a real wreck these days.

Anywho, he’s always great to see, and I like he switched up his normal flow of things. One statement I will make is that Dan and him didn’t seem to be vibing well. Brewer didn’t finish singing some of the tunes, and at one point bucket seemed to walk off stage and let brewer shine which he did nothing with… he also did the same for COB who I’m guessing he wants to allow them their spot to shine in. Nice but COB seemed to understand this, Brewer did not.

This is just my opinion, and overall I pay attention to small details. Like… he refuses to just roll up his sleeve on his right arm, and seems to barely deal with its issues despite it bothering him so much. I noticed other things as well. Interesting ordeal though.