Concert Review:  The Church, House of Blues Chicago, March 12

Marty Willson-Piper's looks may be starting to fade, but his status as underappreciated guitar god only grows. Your stereotypical guitar god is way too cerebral about his craft (and it is a wanky male trait), grimacing through the chords to show just how hard he's working to wrest those sounds from his instrument. But Marty's face conveyed only ecstasy, absolute joy in playing. When he hit his extended intro to "Tantalized," all the pain I'd been experiencing from too much time on my feet magically disappeared. His playing was transporting him to another reality, and he taking the audience as passengers along with him. As they wrapped up their performance and he broke yet another string, the roadies exchanged exasperated yet amused looks; clearly Marty breaks strings faster than they can replace them.

Oh, yeah, the rest of the band was good, too.