Don’t go to the show for the album!

Remember being put on the spot?  Could have been reciting a poem in elementary school, playing golf in that tournament.  With the pressure on, you concentrated hard, but you were somehow stiff and ineffective.  But when the moment of truth expired, you were suddenly fully alive, you could perform at the level of a world champion!  You could suddenly recite that poem with stylistic emphasis, as if you’d written it yourself, you could now hit a perfect draw, straight to the green.

We’ve been told that emotion only occurs in the club.  That large shows are models of studied efficiency, perfection executed according to the beats on the hard drive.  You’re supposed to respect the beauty, but somehow the performance doesn’t truly breathe, it doesn’t enrapture you.

I could recite the etymology of "Gaucho", how it came after the new wave had firmly established itself, when we were not even expecting a new Steely Dan album, that it encapsulated the tiredness of the baby boomers, their feeling that time was finally slipping away.  But to do so would not convey the excellence of last night.

First, it was the crowd.  They went to standing "o" long before those in attendance the evening before.  People got up and danced.  They were relaxed in a way the Friday night audience was not.  And when "Gaucho" was finished, when the deed was finally done, the Steely Dan troupe felt the rush and fed back!

"Black Cow" killed, it was superior to the performance the evening before.  Instead of being a recitation, it breathed.  Rather than being a museum piece, the cobwebs were blown out full-force, the downbeats kicked you in the gut, you couldn’t help but smile, exulting in the joy.

"Bodhisattva" was once again a highlight.  "My Old School" kicked.  But what blew off the roof was "Kid Charlemagne".

Many of the songs had been performed the evening before.  But, just before they left the stage, the band kicked into this opening song from Monday night’s show.  It was as if the technicolor motor home passed behind the band on stage.  It was like a movie.  You remember the seventies?  When dope was no longer casual, but a business? When suddenly the dealer was no longer the long-haired friend, but a cold-hearted businessman you interacted with at your peril?

Is there gas in the car?

YES, THERE’S GAS IN THE CAR!

The machine that took the protagonist of "Don’t Take Me Alive" from Oregon to this godforsaken standoff with the police.  I can’t imagine "Don’t Take Me Alive" being better Monday than it was Friday and Saturday night.  Even the best record is permanent.  It’s not like life, it doesn’t breathe, it doesn’t exude emotion, it can’t.  But in the performances of "Don’t Take Me Alive" you could feel both the tension and the complete backstory of a nonentity, a nerd, who’d made an irreversible mistake.

When done right, a show is not a notch in your belt, not a totem that you can display to friends and acquaintances to prove your status, no t-shirt can evidence the experience, rather it’s a singular event, an excursion that pictures can’t capture.  You were there and you FELT THINGS!

You toured your adolescence, revisited not only your first love, but your first orgasm.  You were sad that so much had gone by, but excited that you now had this wisdom, that you could still feel so alive.

Last night the music swung.  The band was in the groove.  Sure, Fagen is still suffering the aftereffects of his bronchial infection, but whatever vocal failings were evidenced, they were superseded by a band that was totally in the pocket, a freight train not beholden to the restrictions of any track, but truly blazing its own path!

"What a night!  We’re cookin’ baby!"
Donald Fagen – 10:15 PM Saturday August 22, 2009