A Night of Extremes Part I

Saturday night the Donovan concert and my night to volunteer. I got there right on time and headed to the volunteer area. There were thirteen of us and most were in their mid-forties or older. We chatted and I got the impression that many were upper-class liberals and the rest were musicians and aging hippies.

We were gathered together and given jobs to do. Some took tickets, some were ushers and I got the job of handing out programs. There were four of us doing the job so it was basicly a job of observing the people coming in. A lot of old folkies were there along with their kid and grandkids. I was surprised with how many people I knew from various groups including one fellow that I met at The Fur Peace Ranch. He and I studied under Alvin Youngblood Hart a few years ago.

After about an hour of handing out programs I grabbed a couple of beers and headed upstairs to the free seats in the balcony. I recognized the guy sitting next to me as Larry Bruner from Folknet. He writes a column that I've been reading for years called Coffee Is My Drug. During the show I offered him my binoculars and after looking through them he said, "They aren't much good as my hands tend to shake." I joked that maybe he should cut down of the coffee (trying to joke about the title of his column) and he replied, "No, it's Parkinsons." That was a real conversation killer.

First up for the concert was April Verch. She is a Canadian fiddler and stepdancer. I find that a little fiddling goes a long way with me and I enjoyed her performance. I enjoyed the reels and was a little surprised when she stepped out and did some stepdancing.

Finally Donovan came out to a very enthusiastic audience. The first thing he did was to plug his new autobiography and box set coming out just in time for Christmas. He spoke is a soft melodic voice and told stories as he strummed his guitar. Unfortunately the stories sounded more like name dropping than actual stories. His first story was about dating a model (he emphasized) that had just broken up with Brian Jones. Later he would talk about The Beatles and being with them in India.

I didn't like his voice at all. Years ago I found his voice affected but now it modulated such that took away much of the melody. His guitar playing was another matter. He basicly strummed the guitar or did a bass note then strum that got VERY boring after a short time. I found some of his hits (and there were many) nearly unrecognizable due to the lack of backup instruments. His guitar by itself just couldn't carry the day. The only exception being Jennifer Juniper which he fingerpicked. He switched to electric guitar midway through to tackle many of his later hits and it only empasized his lack of facility with the guitar.

He finished the show and of course did and encore with Mellow Yellow, then invited all the young girls in the audience on stage. Seeing this aging star on stage with all these young women seemed just a little creepy. He finished the song on a high note and then let all of the excitement end while people exited the stage. He then came back with his strumming and did Atlantis. When it ended instead of the traditional lighters held high most people raised their lit cell phones.

Overall I found the concert to be more of an infomercial for his autobiography and box set than a concert. It was as if he was trying to squeeze the last bits out of his fame while he could.

To be fair, most of the people that I spoke to enjoyed the concert. Perhaps I've seen too many great concerts and expect too much.

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit