We went to see Al Stewart at the Triple Door yesterday. The Triple Door is an interesting place, set up for dinner and music. It’s associated with the Wild Ginger restaurant upstairs, and the food was wonderful.
The calendar entry for the show hadn’t mentioned any other names, and so I was surprised when the MC introduced an opening act: Gabby Young with Stephen Ellis. We were blown away by her voice and her songs. Stephen is one member of Gabby’s band (Gabby Young and Other Animals), but he’s also involved in another group (the name of which escapes me right now Revere), and he did one song from their repertoire, which was very nice.
So to Al Stewart. I enjoyed seeing Al again (how many times now, since 1968?), but we agreed
afterwards that it was slightly disappointing. For me, there were four problems.
- First, Dave Nachmanoff. Some years ago, Dave popped up as an Al groupie who knew the guitar changes to all of Al’s songs, and he became a fixture. He’s a good guitarist, a decent singer-songwriter in his own right (though the one song he sang yesterday was really dire – Sunday School stuff), and a good accompanist. The problem yesterday was that Dave was grandstanding on almost every solo, and a small section of the audience (his fan club?) was wildly and disproportionately applauding everything he did. Al and Dave even commented on it, but it made no difference. I want to hear Al’s songs, not have the words drowned in raucous applause for a routine guitar break.
- Second, the setlist. Al has a new album out, Sparks of Ancient Light. (It’s released on the 16th, but they had CDs for sale at the show.) I wanted to hear more of the songs from the album, but we only got three (or maybe four – I haven’t listened to the CD yet). Instead we got “Al’s greatest hits”: “On The Border”, “Time Passages”, “Soho (Needless To Say)”, “Fields of France”, and “Year of the Cat”. OK, I guess, but a bit disappointing.
- Third, Al was not in the best voice tonight. Side effects of the road trip, or age? I should be able to answer that after listening to the new album.
- And finally there was the drunken, loud-mouthed member of the party of four sitting just behind us. After several requests to the staff, he was eventually escorted off the premises, but it was an unpleasant distraction.
Ah, well.I’m glad we went: the food and wine (a Coldstream Hills pinot noir) were excellent, Gabby Young was a wonderful discovery, and it was great to see Al again.
UPDATE: Well, a number of people on the Al mailing lists have been beating me up about this review. Let me add a few thoughts, edited from my emails.
Al has always worked best with another good guitarist to complement him, and I’ve seen many of them. Peter White and Laurence Juber were/are obviously the best (and I don’t think that Dave would disagree).
So do me a favour. Go back and listen to either “Rhymes in Rooms” with Peter White, or the “Dutch Tour 1996” with Laurence Juber. Even though Peter and Laurence are handling the more complex guitar passages, neither of them pushes forward as Dave did yesterday. Neither of them turns every bridge into a solo. And in those earlier shows the audience responded appropriately.
Look, I like Dave. I have a number of his CDs. The music that he creates covers a wide range, and speaks to different audiences. Some of his songs I like; others I find simplistic or trite. One of the things I love about Al’s work is the subtle, sophisticated word-play, and that wasn’t what Dave offered us last night.
I was glad that I went to the show, and I enjoyed it. That said, I’ve seen Al many times over the last 40 years, and some of those shows were sheer magic. Go back and read my comments on the Al+Dave show in Bellevue in January, 2007. Note that Dave included “The Loyalist”, which fit nicely into the historical theme that Al has made his own. So I was a little disappointed last night – OK?