Row K, Seats
64-65 (right hand section)
Despite the
audience being somewhat subdued during much of the show (a perennial Wolf Trap
headache), Jackson and his bandmates put on a great show, taking the stage
shortly after 8:00 and not leaving until they were close to the 11:00 curfew,
with one brief intermission. They started off, appropriately enough, with
“Doctor My Eyes” (his first hit single), and then proceeded to mix
crowd-pleasers such as “For Everyman” and “These Days” with some newer and/or
lesser-known material. I was especially happy that they got to a number of my
favorites in both sets: “Fountain Of Sorrow” near the beginning, “Sky Blue And
Black” to close the first set, a moving version of “For A Dancer”, and “In The
Shape Of A Heart” near the end. The crowd was polite throughout and generous
with its applause, but it didn’t really come to its feet until “Boulevard”
(with a subtle nudge from Jackson) and then “Running On Empty” to close the second
set; somehow almost everyone managed to stay seated during both a kick-ass
version of “Redneck Friend” (a crowd request) and the penultimate “The
Pretender”. The high point of the evening was probably the enthusiastic crowd
sing-along to “Take It Easy”, which was the first encore. (However, the
funniest moment for me was when someone in the crowd yelled out his desire to
hear “Lawyers In Love”, at which someone sitting in our row responded with a vociferous “No!”)
And as a
bonus, walking through the parking lot on my way in, I ran into a couple old
friends from Westat, whom I had been hoping to see (but missed) at the company
picnic two days earlier.
Band -- Val
McCallum (guitar), Mauricio Lewak (Drums), Jeff Young (keyboards), Bob Glaub
(bass), Alethea Mills (Vocals) and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz (guitar,
lap steel, pedal steel)
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