So...How Many Steely Dan Concerts Have You Seen?

I guess they ask this question, because of the death of Walter Becker.

How many Steely Dan Concerts have you seen, over the years?

My answer is: 20 going on 21.

I managed to miss both the East Coast and West Coast concerts for the Two Against Nature tour.

I was on vacation in NYC, when the Jones Beach Concert was going on. I thought about it, but it was way too late, by then.

In Los Angeles, I thought about trying to get to Irvine Meadows, but decided not to, since I could not get in touch with the person I would have gone with. I found out later that my Steely Dan work friend would have come with me, had I bought the tickets that I saw at the last minute. Oh well, live and learn.

2003 -3 Concerts
My first year, I managed to get to the Fairgrounds at Paso Robles, The Roseland Ballroom (Friday Show only), and Universal Amphitheatre

2006 -3 Concerts
In 2006 we were treated to Donald Fagen going on a solo tour, at the Wiltern Theater, L.A. Then we saw Steely Dan at The Embarcadero Marina Park, in San Diego, for the final concert that they played 2 sets with an intermission in the middle. Then I flew to Michigan, for the SD/Michael McDonald show at DTE Energy Music Theatre.

2007 -1 Concert
Chumash! Santa Ynez

2008 -2 Concerts
We saw them at the Nokia L.A. (ask about the champagne and truffles sometime), then at the Pond in Anaheim

2009 -4 Concerts
Royal Scam, Aja, Gaucho, and Internet Request Night, at the Gibson Amphitheater

2011 -2 Concerts
Santa Barbara Bowl and The Beacon NYC (Rarities and Unreleased)

2013 -1 Concert
Boston, The Wang Theatre

2014 -1 Concert
The Forum, Los Angeles

2015 -1 Concert
Santa Barbara Bowl

2016 -1 Concert
Hollywood Bowl Opening Night

2017 -1 Concert(going on 2)
Santa Barbara Bowl (Hopefully Donald Fagen and the Nightflyers this month at the Masonic in San Francisco)

Which concert, out of all of them, was my favorite?

It is a tie between The Roseland Ballroom "Everything Must Go" Tour and the infamous Rarities and Unreleased at the Beacon.

May Donald continue in Steely Dan's name, for years to come.

No Pretzels Today

It has been a very hard 2 days.

The death of Walter Becker has brought out so many posts and so many memories.

Up onto my Facebook feed, Twitter feed and Blog feed, among other places.

I am overwhelmed by it all.

This photo I found, right at the end of day 2, and it said it all for me.

The Pretzel Logic cover, that I have mentioned before.

Godspeed to you, Walter. You will absolutely be missed.

A tribute by his daughter, Sayan Becker (the one mentioned in Book of Liars, with the line "And there's a Hello Kitty for his pride and joy"), can be found HERE.

Walter Becker Has Died

Walter Becker has died.

To say the least, I am heartbroken.

Godspeed to you Walter.

You can read more, HERE.

Updated to add a statement from Donald Fagen.

Donald Fagen statement September 3, 2017:

Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm.

We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.

Walter had a very rough childhood - I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art. He used to write letters (never meant to be sent) in my wife Libby’s singular voice that made the three of us collapse with laughter.

His habits got the best of him by the end of the seventies, and we lost touch for a while. In the eighties, when I was putting together the NY Rock and Soul Review with Libby, we hooked up again, revived the Steely Dan concept and developed another terrific band.

I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.