OT - Ann Arbor's Laith Al-Saadi - The Voice
Being a resident of NC who loves the blues & high quality guitar play, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Laith Al-Saadi on "The Voice" this season. His performance of B.B. King's "The Thrill is Gone" tonight was excellent.
Question I have for MGoBloggers from the Ann Arbor area - Who has had the opportunity to watch this guy live? How would you rate his musicianship, or live performance?
Will embed a video below of his national anthem at the 2012 Hash Bash.
I saw him a bunch of times live while living in AA. Dude rocks. Tons of great bands around the area were always performing at the Art Fair, Top of the Park, Sonic Lunch, etc. I miss those days of seeing Laith, Mayer Hawthorne, The Ragbirds, and many other great AA bands.
I don't watch The Voice and didn't even realize he was on there. I saw him at the 2015 Ann Arbor Folk Festival and was thoroughly impressed. With the exception of Amos Lee he was the best performance that night. The guy can play the guitar and he's got a great voice. Anybody have any of his albums?
Not to be that guy, but Laith is a good friend of mine and we hung out regularly my last two years in AA ('00-'01). He usually played gigs on weekend nights but would often stop by for after hours fun at our place at around 2AM (as did many other friends). Amazingly sweet guy...never heard anyone say a bad thing about him.
He also was the first person to turn me on to The Band and Bruce Hornsby.
We used to go see him weekly (Thursday nights?) at a bar in Ypsi where he would host open mic blues night. There were usually 20ish people in the bar, and most would be blown away by his talent. My favorite covers were Badge and the Bowie songs. I'm hoping he does a Bowie tune on The Voice, as it would be quite appropriate this year and could maybe turn some of these mainstream kids who watch the show on to Bowie.
Laith is an amazing musician. I knew him back in middle school and he was a great, funny guy. I'm rooting for him!