[DANDOM-SEATTLE] SPOILER: Seattle 10/12 review

[Ken Kwartler]

Hey Dandom,

Great show in Seattle last night to open up the new leg of the tour.
Since I've enjoyed so many of your ongoing reports of the '09 tour, 
here's mine:

Portland has apparently fallen off of the boys' map of the US, so I 
made a 6-hour round trip to catch my first Steely Dan show in about 3 
years.  But after hearing from all of you how well they've been 
performing, and with the chance to see them do Aja in its entirety, I 
was game - and for the most part wasn't disappointed.

Donald noted that Seattle's lavish 1928 Paramount Theatre was also 
the site of Steely Dan's very first concert performance (opening for 
The James Gang in '72.)

The show's first 45 min- 1 hr was perhaps the finest Dan performance 
I've ever seen (I've seen every tour since '94, except the past 2-3 
years when they've skipped the NW).

The first 2 numbers (Black Cow & Aja) were magnificent - superbly 
performed and modulated.  Watching Keith Carlock slam away at the 
drum kit while Walt Weiskopf wailed on the sax at the climax of Aja 
was just amazing.  I guessed right that the band would be fresh & 
ready at the start of a new tour leg, and Donald was in especially 
good voice the entire show.  Deacon Blue was nice - though not as 
smooth as I've heard it before, and both Beard's piano and 
Herrington's guitar were miked to a very harsh tone at the outset. 
Peg was outstanding, Home at Last a bit too hard-driving, and I Got 
the News and Josie incredibly well performed.

Listening to the album performed uninterrupted in sequence was a 
wonderful experience - it brought back that day in 1977 that Aja 
arrived at my college radio station's library - this strange looking 
album with a thick, shiny cover, and a remarkable sound that seemed 
to vault light years beyond what the Dan (and most bands) had done 
before.  (Y'see, Gaucho makes sense after Aja, and the Nightfly (to 
my tastes the very best of all Dan albums, well deserving of its own 
full concert performance) follows from Gaucho.  But nothing I'd heard 
from the Dan before led me to expect something as complex as Aja.  I 
played some of it during my weekly show, and got calls from people 
asking who on earth it was - when I told them, listeners couldn't 
believe it came from the guys who did CBaT, Countdown or even Royal 
Scam.)

The show continued at a pretty high level for several more songs - 
the most memorable were Time Out of Mind, Hey 19 (no extended story), 
Black Friday and Bodhitsatva.  Walter did a nice "Daddy Don't Live" 
(I actually like his vocals - I find his '96 Jack of Speed much 
better than Donald's, but he seemed a bit tentative last night), and 
Babylon Sisters was also great.

Things came down a bit on the girl's version of Dirty Work.  Donald 
shut the song down at the start of the first verse, asking someone to 
give Herrington a "A" to tune to.  (We've all heard stories about 
Donald's amazing ear, but to ours Herrington sounded just fine.) 
Then they did the song from the top.

Afterwards, when Walter tried to introduce the band, a few of his 
cheat sheets fell off his music stand - he didn't notice, and intro'd 
only 2 of the singers - saying he'd save the last one - "a special 
guest from NY" - for later.  When Donald came back onstage, he picked 
up the papers and gave them to Walter, who only then was able to 
introduce Janice Pendarvis by name.  Now she may have been a 
last-minute fill-in; she didn't get a lead vocal like the others in 
Dirty Work.  But how could an old pro like Walter not know Janice 
Pendarvis by name?  I've seen her with Sting, she's toured with the 
Stones and other notables - she wasn't some anonymous understudy.  To 
her credit, she was completely up to speed on all the vocals and even 
gestures - I would otherwise never have pegged her for a short-notice 
replacement.
(All three women sang very well.)

A long  and not-that-interesting version of Show Biz Kids (like the M 
McDonald tour one) followed, then after a nice keyboard intro, a more 
pop-ish Do It Again, not as re-interpreted as the '96 version.  And 
Donald seemed to forget the 3rd verse entirely, even though the 
singers filled in with the lyric.  The set closed with solid versions 
of Don't Take Me Alive, Kid Charlemagne and My Old School (which, I 
agree, has begun to lose its charm live after serving as the closing 
number for too many tours.)  They returned for Reelin done much like 
the original pop hit (less like the more interesting Alive in America 
version), with Herrington simply copying Randall's original lead 
lines (hey, I thought they considered that beneath him.  And if not, 
then why not instead copy the remarkable Larry Carlton lead in Kid C, 
which Dan tour guitarists have been unsuccessfully trying to better 
for over a decade?), and the horns never even came in to the song 
until the last note (they took Randall's riff in the AIA version).

The sound mix worsened throughout the evening, with many great 
subtleties of these impressive musicians simply getting lost 
occasionally in the muddle.  I rarely heard a thing that Beard did on 
piano.  And I felt that too many of the songs were sped up and 
performed more like driving rockers.  This can work well for 
individual numbers, but ultimately seemed to rob the show of the 
variety necessary to a great overall concert.  Apart from Babylon 
Sisters, most of the second half songs came across a bit too 
similarly - Bodhit and Black Friday rocked more than they swung, 
Reeling rarely stopped for its breaks.

All told, it was a fabulous show.  The first hour was truly 
extraordinary.  The second hour (this may have been the longest Dan 
show I've seen, at slightly over 2 hours) wound down a bit toward the 
end performance- (and definitely sound-) wise.  And I wish the set 
list included a few more rarely played gems (is Dr. Wu only an 
Internet request night special?  Any World?  Rose Darling? How about 
the Nightfly album, Century's End, Big Noise NY, Confide in Me?)  But 
it was a delight to see the band again, and I'm very glad I made the 
trek.

Happy listening,
Ken
kmkstuff at verizon.net