This review is of the 2nd night of their Heavy Rollers Tour. Steely Dan played 2 nights in California, this past winter. I was lucky to attend one of their shows.
Dateline: Santa Ynez 1/19/07
As I promised on the Blue, I woke up to a beautiful Southern California day. After the past few days of ice and snow and freezing weather, this was a WELCOME change. I took a quick look at the damage to my plants and saw that I lost many of them to the freeze, including my Steely Dan rose. Knowing roses, I am sure it will be back with us, soon reminding us that "Perfect Moments" do happen more then once. Got myself packed and ready for the road, washed and gassed the car...is there gas in the car?...oh yes there is...and off I went. The drive up was through the citrus orchards of California and thankfully, it looked like most of them had survived the weather. Blue sky, mountains and then...the Pacific Ocean as I turned north at Ventura. Put in a CD of America's Ventura Hwy and then Hwy 101 by Herb Albert as the soundtrack to the drive...turquoise water, green trees, yellow grasses, beautiful sites. Folks, it just doesn't get better then this. Finally, I turned off the 101 at Buellton and made my first stop, a place calledOstrichland. Paid my money and made my acquaintance, up close and personal, with the resident ostriches and emus. Interesting creatures to photograph.
Another 2 or so miles down the road and there was Solvang and my stop for the night, the Vagabond Inn. Pulled in and got settled. Changed out of my Donald Fagen tee shirt and put on my clothes for the evening. Then drove over to Santa Ynez, to check out the casino and the Maverick Bar, location for the pre gathering. Since it was already starting to get late, I pulled into the Maverick first at 4PM. I saw the room where we were obviously going to gather, but no one was there yet. Since I wanted to do reconnaissance on the Casino, I went back over to where it was. Found the parking garage and walked over. The showroom was all the way in the back, forcing me to have to walk through the Casino and slots. Lots of smokers and the room reeked of smoke. This Angelino has mentioned it before, but living in California lo these 28 years, I no longer like or tolerate well, the smell of smoke. Oh well. The Samala room area was guarded, but I heard no sounds that would indicate a sound check going on, so I then decided to go back the the Maverick. Well, in the 45 minutes I had been gone, people had showed up, Steely Dan music was playing, Robert and Laurie were hosting and there were tee shirts for us all. The black shirt did indeed come out excellent, kudos to both our hosts and to Denise in Hinktown for the design. I bought one and put it on immediately. As the room got colder, that extra layer of clothing was welcome. I had not eaten since 11:30, so I ordered a chicken breast sandwich and a beer, sat down with some fans from Torrance and we had a pleasant time chatting about last years tour and Soboba. The more I hear of that event, the more I am pleased that I chose the San Diego date, instead. I was ready to head over to the casino at about 6:45, but then in walked Rajah, Gretchen, Steve and Alan from Australia, who I had never had the pleasure to meet in person. So I ended up staying until about 7:15. By then we had about 30 or so people, including Ed Beatty, Hoops, Little Wild One and Geoff Lloyd. Pictures taken, lots of talk and drinks flowing and then I rounded up a bunch of concert goers and we drove back to the Casino. We stopped at the Rajah's room for a quick freshen up break and then I saw a little water bottle on the maids cart and snuck it into the showroom. The tradition continues... :-) Walked into the Samala Room and saw how very small it was. Great views from all seats and I was congratulating myself on saving almost 100 dollars by buying the cheap seats just behind the soundboard. Great view, slightly elevated. The show begins and the Casino announces that if you want to dance, please use the sides of the showroom. GREAT! I know I will want to dance to Bodhisattva, so as the band breaks into Turtle Talk, I work my way over to the side. Don and Walt walk on and off we go, with this angel dancing her butt off. They started at exactly 8PM and were done around 9:45P. No break but Donald was given time off during Dirty Work and Haitian Divorce, to rest his voice. Donald was in excellent voice and he had a short hair cut that looked just too hot! Kudos...59 looks great on him! :-)
Set List:
Turtle Talk (Band Only)
Bodhisattva
Time out of Mind
Aja
Godwacker
Hey 19
Josie
Babylon Sisters
Green Earrings
Dirty Work (The Girls take lead)
Haitian Divorce (Walter on Lead Vocals)
Peg
Kid Charlemagne
My Old School
Last Tango (Band Only)
The songs were basically as we have seen in the past. Godwacker, from their 2003 CD "Everything Must Go" was good to see after a 4 year absence. I had seen this one for the 2nd night of the 2003 tour at Paso Robles and the change from that poor attempt, to tonights excellent version was icing on the cake for me. So good to hear that "trusty angel girls" line from Fagen. It made me feel that they picked it out for me alone, to bail out my sorry butt in regard to saying that Walter would do 2 tunes from his forthcoming new one. I didn't get that, but I got something not from the Jurassic Steely Dan era (with my handle in it) and it was enough. Carlock on drums was just on FIRE! I can't say enough about him and this time, being I was slightly elevated on the risers, I could see him clearly between his cymbals. Jeff Young had his whirly and during Green Earrings he just let that thing fly! Great stuff all around from the guitars, to the bass, to the horns on that tune. Never a disappointment to me. Walter did the Cuervo Gold part of Hey 19 this time around and he did this hilarious talk about driving over from Santa Barbara this morning and then something about "the decay of the social order" He mentioned that we could settle on the shores of Lake Cachuma (which is just over to the east of the Santa Ynez area) and later mentioned in his talk about the drink that could not be named from this stage at this venue (the Casino is dry). The back up singers then broke into "The Cuervo Gold" part of the song and they finished it up. By the time Peg came on, I could feel that the show was winding down toward the end and I returned to the side of the room. Well, there was Ed Beatty, Little Wild One, Hoops and others dancing and enjoying Peg. So I started dancing again and then we went into Kid Charlemagne and the Band took it into overdrive. Then came the encore time. We made our way to the very front of the stage and I was right under Jon Herington and his guitar. As many of you are aware, Jon hailed a cab for me in 2003 and it was just so nice to be able to watch him rip through those guitar parts during My Old School and then the final tune, Last Tango in Paris. Walter was just behind him so this guitar loving girl got 2 guitars for the price of one and took several pictures of them in action. Donald was across the stage and I had an OK view of him, too. A very nice, unforgettable 5 minutes of my life.
So then the lights come on and we are told to go over to the hotel and the after party was in room 216. So I head up and others follow and we had a nice hour or so rehashing the concert, meeting more people who post over on the Blue and all in all a decent end to the evening. Got back to my hotel before Midnight and off to bed.
Thanks again Donald and Walter for the great music and for sharing it with us.
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