Kudos to the Cowboy Junkies for staying together for 35 years, putting out records consistently along the way. Their sound hasn’t changed, a credit to Margo Timmins’s 62-year-old voice. As expected, their live show featured more up-tempo and louder songs than their best records, which can mellow you almost to sleep. They may be a cult taste, in which case much of their cult was in attendance at the Lobero. A pleasant evening, nothing sensational.
Graham Nash brought two hours of musical memories to the Lobero Theater last night, from “Bus Stop” with the Hollies to “Better Life” from his 2023 release, Now. I give great credit to an 81-year-old who is performing five nights a week on a tour through the U.S. and the U.K., hitting the high notes and performing as rock star, not a nostalgia act. (And his new record is not at all bad.) But it was nostalgia that carried the night. With two exceptions, however, the songs were never my favorites. In fact, one of the crowd-pleasing highlights, which also lifted my spirits in comparison, was Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With,” which I hated at the time for its cynical message. One common thread of Nash’s own songs, which I had not noticed, was their narrative nature. They told a story or had a message–no “moon/June” or breakup tears. A highlight of the evening was Nash’s introductions, telling stories about how he came to write each song. As for the two numbers that count among my favorites, “Wasted on the Way,” a 1982 CSN hit, was damaged by the over-amplified or poorly mixed sound system. Instead of the clear voices and fine harmonies one expected, the first half of the concert, especially, was raucous and muddy. When called back for a second encore, Nash and his two backups did a sweet a cappella rendition of Buddy Holly’s “Every Day” and then, as I wished and predicted, ended with “Teach Your Children” from 1970. More exactly, they let the audience end the evening by singing the final lines, “And know they love you.”
July 17, 2023
At 79 her voice is still clear, crisp, loud and silky smooth. Diana Ross’s “Legacy Tour” was truly devoted to her legacy, with videos of her earlier career and Motown contemporaries filling the screen in place of any shots of her current self performing. Diana was in the full diva mode she rose to within the Supremes, then leaving them behind, as we were treated to four costume changes in the course of the 1:45 performance. I was never a fan of her post-Supremes music, but most of the sold-out Santa Barbara Bowl clearly was, singing along with The Boss, Endless Love and the equally endless Upside Down. For the wife and me, the first set made the evening worthwhile: Baby Love, Where Did Our Love Go, Stop! In the Name of Love, You Can’t Hurry Love and Love Child (note a theme here?) sounded better live than on the radio, a demand to dance, which we did. Her new album, Thank You, is not bad, at least in the non-disco numbers, and the title track served as a memorable encore, something I hummed all the way to our car. You have to respect what she has accomplished as a Black woman in the music business, and we glimpsed her human side when she brought seven of her eight grandchildren onto the stage, which made us think this concert was special for her too.
A sonic assault is how I’d describe Cat Power’s powerful indeed show at the Lobero. Singing in the dark, spotlight-free, and with two mics in hand, she scorched her songs, backed by a three-person band that sounded like ten. Touring in support of her “Covers” album, she deconstructed familiar songs by the Rolling Stones, Byrds, Jackson Browne, Frank Sinatra (“New York, New York”) and probably others I didn’t recognize, eliminating any obvious melody but building a tune just above a drone. Liking something to hum along with, I wondered at first what I was doing there; but the mood took over and the sound reached inside me. I can’t imagine that any of this would sound good on a record, but in person the performance was hypnotic and I enjoyed myself. Maybe not as much as the dedicated fans around me, but it was another good Santa Barbara experience. (9/9/22)
Jackson Browne made me just as happy last night as he did four years ago when he sang at the Bowl. More than half his set list was different, which speaks to the size and quality of his repertoire. I started thinking that he must be the best songwriter of our generation, after Dylan and Springsteen; but his songs are so much more relatable. The early ones are about love and longing, the more recent tend toward political issues; but the words are always clear and thoughtful. Then there is the sound. His songs have a rolling rhythm that is infectious, and amplified by the Bowl’s sound system, they filled the air around me. As familiar as were most of the songs, they sounded so much better in person.
He treats the Bowl as his home court, which makes the evening extra special. “I played all these great places on this tour…but they weren’t Santa Barbara.” The crowd–not a young person in the bunch–loved him back, creating a sense of community. This was real Santa Barbara: no one was dressed up, everyone was comfortable, we all sang along. He opened loud and proud with “Somebody’s Baby,” right at 7; played till 8:15; took a 15-minute break, as promised; then played to 9:55, including two encores, ending, as before (maybe always?) with “The Load-Out” and “Stay.” In between he plucked numbers from ten different albums. His first was released a half-century ago, but the songs have held up: “Rock Me On the Water,” “Jamaica Say You Will,” and “Doctor My Eyes,” perhaps the biggest crowd-pleaser. My favorite album is Late for the Sky. I’ve written before about “For A Dancer.” “Fountain of Sorrows” melted me totally.
He chatted casually between numbers, offering explanations only for the four songs from his 2021 album, Downhill from Everywhere, the title song of which refers to the huge mass of plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Although they were less familiar, these songs fit the groove, from the politically insistent “The Dreamer” to the soulful “A Little Soon to Tell.” He apparently altered his program in response to a fan’s shouted request for “The Shape Of A Heart,” further cementing his connection with the audience. Finally, it was nice to see an age-appropriate band backing Jackson. The lead guitarist was on the young side, but the slide guitar, drummer, keyboard and bass player looked like veterans of Browne’s career, maybe not David Lindley but the next best thing. And the two Black female backup singers have been with Browne for twenty years, he said, after he picked them out of a high school gospel chorus. There was nothing showy, a la Rod Stewart. This was laid-back Southern California at its best.
I was expecting a battle of the bands when one of my favorites, Dawes, opened for The Head and the Heart at the Santa Barbara Bowl on August 18, 2022. Both bands were formed in 2009; Dawes has released eight albums (including Misadventures of Doomscroller last month) and H&H five (including Every Shade of Blue in April). But Dawes’s hits (defined by airplay on the Spectrum channel) came early in their career, while H&H’s successes have been building, which likely accounted for their order on the bill.
In the event, it wasn’t much of a contest: Dawes came across as the kids on the block, while H&H were the real thing. For starters, Dawes’s new songs (including “Ghost in The Machine,” “Someone Else’s Cafe” and “Comes in Waves”) were a letdown. The storytelling was a bit labored and the melodies dragged. They segued into “Time Spent in Los Angeles” for their second number and pleased me with other hits, including “Things Happen,” “When My Time Comes” and”All Your Favorite Bands” (with help from H&H members), but I missed their classic, “A Little Bit of Everything,” that I had heard them perform both in Minneapolis and at the Lobero. Beyond the choice of music, Dawes’s appearance was unimpressive. There was little interaction among the five members, who stood randomly onstage; the bass player looked a stranger to the group, and lead singer Taylor Goldsmith bounced around goofily. And while I don’t expect hip rockers to emulate the uniforms of Rod Stewart, Dawes’s bland T-shirts stood in contrast to the collared shirts sported by all members of H&H.
When The Head and the Heart took the stage, after an inexplicable 50-minute intermission, the level of professionalism soared. The six members lined up in two rows of three and appeared purposefully engaged. An ever bigger difference was the sound. Somehow – was there a synthesizer or other electronic enhancement? – the Bowl was suddenly full of sound, and it never let up. I was worried that the mellow songs of H&H wouldn’t translate to an arena, but the energy and volume easily carried the day, even on my favorite, “Let’s Be Still.” I didn’t realize how much of H&H’s catalogue I knew, but everything they played in their 90-minute set had a familiar feel, and everything sounded good.
The up-and-comers Caamp played an excellent 45-minute set at the Bowl last night, with infectious rhythms producing one happy dancing-in-the-seats song after another, including “Peach Fuzz” and “Officer of Love,” the two numbers that had caught my attention on radio. Unfortunately, the show had another 45 minutes to run. The band vamped for ten or so minutes while lead singer Taylor Meier took a bathroom break. (He smoked a cigarette onstage, so he didn’t need to leave for that.) Then Taylor, who had also been playing lead guitar, switched to the drums, the rhythm guitarist sang an unnecessary Neil Young cover, and the magic sound disappeared. Also disappointing: not a word was shared with the enthusiastic Santa Barbara audience. And the set, lighting and costumes were minimal, to say the least. Maybe Caamp will grow, build out their catalogue and profit from experience. Or it’s possible that these up-and-comers have come, and that’s it.
The show opened with six sequined blondes in a line, hair pulled back, each holding a white guitar. Rod Stewart then ambled onstage and began belting out Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.” As I studied the stage with my opera glasses, I soon noticed that the gorgeous blondes were not actually playing their guitars–those were just props! The music was all coming from the three guitar players and two drummers behind, all in matching cherry red jackets and white sneakers. That’s when I knew we weren’t in for a normal Santa Barbara Bowl rock concert, but more a Las Vegas show. By evening’s end, after at least two complete costume changes and a release of hair, I recognized that Rod’s blondes weren’t just for show: one was an angelic harpist, one a virtuoso violinist and another a fiddle player (“What’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle?,” Rod asked, then answered, “Who the f— cares!”), one sang like Tina Turner, and while the other two just danced and sang backup, one was absolutely stunning.
With such a large corpus to choose from, I was happy that Rod sang songs that had all been my favorites, with the sole and expected exception of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.” He reached back in the catalogue, starting with “You Wear It Well” (I’ve been meaning to phone ya, from Minnesota…), moving on to “Gladbags and Handrags” and a slow-starting full-on production of “Maggie May.” I was thrilled to hear him sing “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” and I similarly wallowed in “Tonight’s the Night,” “You’re in My Heart,” “Rhythm of My Heart,” “Have I Told You Lately,” and the longest cut, “Forever Young.” In a concession to his age (one year older than me), he and the blondes sat on chairs for a not-really “acoustic” set near the end, but his voice was strong and he danced and kicked, sometimes footballs, just enough to keep things visually interesting. The show rocked on for an hour and forty minutes; there were no stops but a number of intervals where his girls or the instrumentalists, including a Black saxophonist a la Clarence Clemons, took center stage and gave Rod a break. One sincerely felt he wanted to play longer and was cut short by the Santa Barbara 10 pm curfew, which he kept alluding to as the hour drew near. It was all polished but endearing, expected but surprising.
Cheap Trick was the opening act, two-fifths original. They played so loud, or the sound mix was so bad, that you couldn’t hear a melody, let along any lyrics. We sat through it, nervous about what the sound augured for the main act. When Rod Stewart came out, we could hear every word.
Took flyers on back-to-back live shows by singers I’d heard, but not seen: She & Him at the Arlington, Brett Dennen at the Lobero. “She” is Zooey Deschanel, and from “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire” her voice was shrill and over-mic’ed, unpleasant to listen to from the seventh row. As there was nothing going on besides her voice, it became a long night very early. M. Ward, the “Him” of the team, played a jazzy guitar accompaniment but remained in the shadow. Not as much as the background singers and musicians, who were 20 feet behind Zooey and poorly. She ran though a collection of Christmas standards listlessly, perhaps recognizing that Christmas was still a long 23 days away. After a short on-stage interlude that passed for conversation, She & Him shifted to their “catalogue,” which was bouncier and seemingly of greater interest to the performers. The voice was still hard to take, which was a problem, as Zooey’s voice, and persona as a chanteuse, is all that was on sale. Perhaps to avoid unfavorable comparison, the opening act, comedian Pete Lee, didn’t sing at all.
The opening act at the Lobero managed to top Zooey for loud and shrill, and since she didn’t believe in melody either we waited out her set on the plaza. Brett Dennen, finally, came on with some personality, and the vocal Lobero audience kept a fun conversation going. He played by himself, which muted some of his songs, but his lyrics were clear, his tunes catchy and his rhythms engagingly syncopated. I like the three or four songs they play on the radio, and they sounded good live. Everything he sang was at least “good,” although there was little that made me want to go home and start streaming. Mostly, I enjoyed his engaged storytelling; and the fact that he lives in Ventura and had a lot of friends in the crowd made it a pleasantly relaxed evening.
Jakob Dylan was frustrated that the Lobero crowd was responding appreciatively but politely to his group, the Wallflowers. “We’re a rock’n’roll band!,” he pleaded. Finally, before launching into “One Headlight,” his biggest, if not only, hit, he pointedly commented, “It must be awfully tiring just sitting in those seats,” and on cue the crowd rose as one and started gyrating along with the music, and we stayed on our feet for one more song and two encores. Was it masks that kept the excitement level down, the mature age of the audience, the stately character of the theater, or the good-but-not-great quality of the music? When the Wallflowers’ appearance in Santa Barbara was first advertised, I bought a ticket and started listening to their new album, ” Exit Wounds,” which I thought surprisingly good. “Surprising,” because it had been 25 years since their breakthrough album, “Bringing Down the Horse,” and I hadn’t heard or thought much about them since then. One-third of their concert featured songs from “Exit Wounds,” including my favorites, of the album and of the night: “Roots and Wings,” “The Dive Bar in My Heart,” “I’ll Let You Down (But Will Not Give You Up),” “I Hear the Ocean (When I Wanna Hear Trains),” although the harmony of Shelby Lynne that lights up the record was missing from the performance. It was good rock’n’roll, but it didn’t bring back enough memories or cause enough chills. And Dylan himself seemed stuck in an off-base persona–not really Bob, but not really something different. I guess in the end, the audience was a reflection of his enthusiasm.
The opening act was a band called Ragged Glory, which, I learned from the program, reconvenes once a year to recreate Neil Young’s songs from 1969-79–”Hello Cowgirl in the Sand,” etc. I loved their songs, although they never matched the originals; but what I loved most was the fact that here in 2021, musicians were paying homage to music, my music, from a half-century ago. Two days later I was back at the Lobero for music from 55 years ago, and it was quite a contrast. Jan and Dean’s Beach Party featured 81-year-old Dean Torrence (Jan having died) and four replacement/studio musicians who, we were told, regularly play with the Beach Boys’ various touring groups. This was strictly an “oldies” show, with canned patter, rote performances and more repetition than conviction. The songs–more Beach Boys than Jan and Dean, as was appropriate, with a couple of strays–were of course memorable; but the quality of play and lack of inspiration or imagination left a lot to be desired. They made me appreciate Ragged Glory, who tried to make it their own, not just copy what someone else had done.
© Copyright 2019 Robert Marshall | All Rights Reserved.