Bob Seger at Xcel

     The message I took from the concert in St. Paul by 66-year-old Bob Seger is that rock’n’roll is here to stay. Although some songs he sang were 40 years old, this was not an oldies concert. The Silver Bullet Band played the songs as written, with no need for a musical update, and they sounded just as fresh, just as relevant as when they were new. When an orchestra plays a Beethoven symphony, you don’t like it because it’s an oldie-but-goodie.  It speaks to you today. The same is true for Seger’s music. I guess that’s why they call it ‘classic rock.’ I feel it will still have the same power to move people 40 years from now.
(This raises the question whether the hits of today will have the same staying power. Am I attached to Seger’s music because I was more impressionable when it first came out? It’s certainly true that there was a preponderance of 60-year-olds in the crowd. One answer is that music was more unified, and unifying, in the 1970s. There wasn’t the division on the airwaves among pop, AOR, soft rock, alternative, not to mention 50-some choices on Sirius. Songs like “Night Moves” and “We’ve Got Tonight” were anthemic in the way few releases can be today.)
As for the concert itself, it had sincerity and integrity. The bass player, acting like the music director, has been a Silver Bullet since 1969. The saxophonist, who looked like a refugee from the Sopranos, goes back to 1971, as does the lead guitarist, who hasn’t cut his hair since then and reminded me of Riff-Raff on steroids. With three backup vocalists and a four-man horn section, there were a total of 15 on stage. Seger himself was white-haired, heavyset and bespectacled, wore a black headband and a series of Harley-Davidson T-shirts, and looked a little goofy with his gap-toothed grin. His moves consisted of pumping his right arm, which you felt was quite age-appropriate. He didn’t burden us with new material, but his selections tended toward second-tier cuts off his best albums: the songs were recognizable but not the show-stoppers I was hoping for. Horizontal Bop and Katmandhu are not my favorite Seger.
In all, the energy was there, the crowd was enthusiastic and vocal, there was always someone to look at onstage, and the music made you stand and dance. It was straight-on rock’n’roll, Michigan-style, and we felt honored.