Sometimes things come in waves, and it seems everyone is on tour at once right now. I’ve been the three concerts in the last week, with more coming up, and even more I’d like to see but don’t have the time for.
First off was Sting, a week ago at Jones Beach Theater in Long Island. Jones Beach is a great place to see a show, a semicircular amphitheater right on the edge of the bay. We had seats in the lower deck, just a few rows up from the floor, so a great view. We went with Jeannie’s sister Mary, and before we went in, we had a little tailgate party with sandwiches and a bottle of wine. It said there was no opening act, and when we got inside there was a guy who looked and sounded alot like Sting singing and strumming and acoustic guitar, accompanied only by a drummer. I thought, wow, Sting looks great for a guy in his seventies, and he’s been working out, his neck is alot thicker. But it turns out it was his son. Sting Jr. had some great songs and a great voice, and looks alot like his dad.
After that the real Sting came on with his band. He actually does looks great for a guy in his seventies, and sang and played with lots of energy. He played a fender P-bass with very little treble in the tone. The band of course was great. There were enough musicians to cover all the different sounds from his solo hits and a good smattering of Police songs. The featured jamming instrument was a harmonica, and the dude was great. Also some backup singers, keys, guitar; everyone in the band had a feature section, which was fun. I saw Sting once in the 1990’s and the vibe of that show was musically excellent but down, with predominately dark, slow, introspective songs. This time he still did his share of moody ballads about losing his faith in a used up world, but kept it balanced with upbeat and uptempo numbers. As a special bonus Branford Marsalis on the saxophone came out and sat in with the group, and lifted things to a whole nuzzer level. He was one of my saxophone heroes back in the day, and the way his playing complements Sting’s songs is just perfect. We also discovered the right parking lot get out of there quickly without getting stuck in traffic.
Then over the weekend we went to the Outlaw Music Festival, again with Mary. This was in the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, a really cool venue that I had no idea existed. When I heard about the show I thought it was going to be in the tennis stadium at the north end of Flushing Meadow Park, but it was actually at the old stadium at the south end, part of the original tennis club. It hasn’t been used the for the U.S. Open since the 1970’s but they still put on concerts there.
Mary and Lou used to live in Forest Hills, and Jeannie and I not to far away in Woodside, Queens, so we before the show we got together for brunch with some old Queens friends, John and Mary and Larry. That was lots of fun. The show was a festival so by the time we got in it was already underway. There were five bands. The main one I wanted to see was Bob Weir. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the Grateful Dead I’d almost forgotten they existed, although at one time they were my second-most-seen band after Rush. Bobby of course did mainly Dead songs, maybe not as stretched out as they used to back in the day and with a little more focus on the songs, but still with a few extended jams. The band included a combination horn and string section. One thing I liked was when he segued into What’s Going On? in the middle of Eyes of the World.
The headliner of the night was Willie Nelson. For whatever reason Mary, who grew up in Brooklyn, is a big Willie Nelson fan (as is my cousin Peter from Ontario). To me Willie is one of those guys who was always on the radio when I was a kid, and since then transcended his own long career to achieve living legend status, so I though it was pretty cool. The surprise special guest in his band was Norah Jones on piano and vocals, a legend in her own right, who I guess wanted to tour with one of her idols. There was also an excellent harmonica player. Now in his 90’s, Willie can still play and sing. Alot of his style is rooted in the great American songbook, and he threw in a good handful of standards as well as his own hits. His set was pretty short because in contrast to the deadheads, Willie’s songs were all basically three minutes and out. He might’ve skipped an encore cuz it was starting to rain.
Then finally last night we saw Peter Gabriel at Madison Square Garden. He and Sting are kind of next door neighbors in terms of their career arcs, with huge solo popularity and critical acclaim in the 80’s after leaving successful band to explore new sonic ideas, and then a long trajectory of more personal, artistic songwriting. Unlike Sting, Peter Gabriel now looks like an old man, bald and overweight compared to the smirking face on MTV back in the day. He did two sets, the first being mainly new material, with a predominately dark, slow, introspective feel. The second set was mainly his hits from throughout his career. The band was great, and featured the inimitable Tony Levin on bass, as well as a combination horn and string section and backing vocalists, and other members joining in from time to time on flutes and pipes. It occurred to me that he’s been perfecting the same ideas since Genesis in a sense, and the band was perfectly suited to replicate those mellotron sounds using natural instruments. The show was great, and visual presentation too, with lighting and projected artwork and animation as well as the music. And like Sting, Peter Gabriel has alot of great songs and really made the most of them. I was a bit disappointed but not too surprised he didn’t play anything by Genesis. I mean maybe not Supper’s Ready but at least a bit of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway would be nice.