Concert Review: Robin Trower

Concert Review
Robin Trower
The Pageant
March 1, 2008

I am... as his been over documented in these pages... an idiot. I seem to be especially “challenged” in regard to concert performances and the ticketing and attendence at same. The doctors do not have a name for this mallady as of yet but I am hopeful that the people at Barnes/Jewish/Christian Hospital with the assistance of some MRE’’s and PET scans and perhaps a little invasive surgery into my brain will be able to come up with something but I will also throw it out to you to name my disease.

I had intended to take my god child rocker Brian Kukla with me to see the Drive By Truckers at the Pageant on Saturday night. The DBT’s have been around for almost 10 years and I have seen them three or four times. They are old school southern rock, cutting their teeth with three guitars ala Allman Brothers or Lynard Skynard. It is a noble heritage when done correctly and their CD from about 5 years ago, “Southern Rock Opera” is somewhat of a classic. So I was excited and had picked up the tickets at the Pageant earlier that day, walking in, saying “I need two tickets for tonights show”, and taking them and paying for them and never looking at them. BRILLIANT!

The problem was that the DBT’s were at the Pageant on Friday night. I did not realize it until I got out of the car and looked at the ticket. Then I said to Kukla...”They gave me the wrong tickets”... but they didn’t. I just screwed up. Fortunately Kukla is a guitar player, bluesy rocker so when i saw I had tickets for Robin Trower I thought... well, it is a sunk cost, and he will probably like him better anyway.

To quote the very quoatable John De Penalozza...”Robin Trowers not dead? Who knew?” Apparently a packed house at the Pageant knew. I did not. I mean... I guess i knew he was alive but I hardly cared. He started out in Procol Harum and while “Whiter Shade of Pale” is probably a top 100 all time song, he left their to di solo work. I think the only album he released which is still out was the somewhat seminal “Bridge of Sighs” (no relationship to the bridge in Venice or Richard Russo’s recent book) which had a number of FM hits including “Day of the Eagle”. I knew he was a guitar god (small g) but he was also from the “Clapton is God (large G) era and there was little in the way of blues rock that Clapton and for that matter even Jeff Beck had not already done to death, at least for my taste.

The show, though sold out had room on the floor and the opening act was already playing when we arrived. It was a local band called Logos and well... they were really good. They rocked really loud, appeared to be just kids and really tore it up. This was good solid blues rock by some younger local kids and they played VERY well. Check out their myspace page:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=27275677

The crowd loved them and the crowd was... old and ugly. I was by no means old at the show fitting right into the middle and can I say unequivically and for the record... the 60’s people are not aging well. This was an ugly group of about 90% men. One of those crowds where there is always a line for the men’s room but the ladies room is wide open. Whether it is because they are using their Flomax or whatever, it is hard to take a piss when you get 2000 upper middle aged men together with 4 men’s rooms. And as to ugly... a lot of us are going bald but these guys have the long stringy bald hair, lots of unkept sideburns and trucker caps saying things like “Kiss Army”. Ugly men and to be fair... the women were worse (the sole exception being Ethan’s wife). You get the idea.

Soo, after a 30 minute break Trower came out. To be fair... he is 62 and he looks pretty good. Long and lanky with long thinning gray hair but... he looked good. His band was a 40 something body builder with a Rod Stewart do and a muscle shirt that showed off his breasts, a fat lank haired drummer and this singer...Davey Pattison. He looks like Jerry Springer and even Wikipedia does not know how old he is but he had all the moves he still had when he was in his 30s singing for Ronnie Montrose. He played the tambourine and pointed a lot. I guess he could sing but you could not really tell.

It was a loud show and Trower still has his chops. he is a large man and thos big hands move across the fret board as well as anyone I have seen in a while. he is no Richard Thompson but my guess is that he could play circles around BB King on most blues licks at this point. Trower has a new CD out which he did with another dinosaur god, Jack Bruce and he interspersed those songs with his “hits”. He played and thumped for an hour and a half including his encores. The Kukla kid was all smiles after seeing a lot of old people rock out. It was kind of fun and kind of sad but... I have spent worse nights and made worse mistakes. That is the good thing about my disease. Even your mistakes can work out.

DAY OF THE EAGLE
I saw a light, just up ahead
But I couldn't seem to rise up from my bed
I'm not alone, than I am
People seem to think I'm superman
But I watch for the love
I'm living in the day of the eagle, the eagle not the, dove

Its like a weight, that brings me down
If I don't move, I'm on the ground
Its in my mind, Its in my soul
Its telling me the things I can't be told
Its a watch for the love
Living in the day of the eagle, eagle not the, dove

Another day, another night
I want to love, they want to fight
I need the time, I got to be alone
I got to meet a lover on my own
I watch for the love
Living in the day of the eagle, eagle not the, dove
****
This is not deep shit.