Bill Petro

Concert Review: James Taylor at Coors Amphitheater in Denver

I’ve seen James Taylor in concert about half a dozen times from the Greek Theater in Berkeley to Red Rocks above Denver. This performance at the Coors Amphitheater in the Denver Tech Center was the most relaxed I’ve seen. It is wider than either of the other venues and seemed to add greater intimacy and immediacy to his style. He has a very easy going style with audiences and a relaxed manner but I’ve never seen him so chatty with the crowd. He was cracking jokes, handling hecklers and signing autographs several times between acts and encores.

He began with a relaxed acoustic “Secret Of Life,” then was joined by the band for “Summer’s Here,” where each mention of “beer” in the lyrics brought people holding their Coors beer bottles high.

Andrea Zonn, one of his female singers is also a terrific fiddler. Her Irish tunes were delightful, especially as he performed the unexpected “The River is Wide.”

He performed two of his original pieces that were distinguished by having had Ray Charles cover them: “Nothin’ Like a Hundred Miles” and the mournful “Everybody Has the Blues.”

“Fire and Rain” seemed to be what everyone was waiting for. And “Handy Man” lit up the audience. With 8 instrumentalists and three background singers there were quite a lot on stage. The harmonies were rapturous. He improvised still more beyond his already jazzed up live versions (which you can hear on his Live album) than his studio standards.

At numerous times during the concert he joked with the audience. He talked about his “Elvis collar” that phenomena which occurs when the wind blows your collar up. At another time we couldn’t hear the question from the audience, but his reply was

“…their pitching is a little weak, but it’s still early in the season.”

When people felt compelled to call out song requests, “Mexico” came out loudest. His reply,

“We’ll get to it (holding up his blackboard). See, it’s right down here. We’ll have to get through this crap first though.”

Later, when someone was quite insistent about a song he said,

“I’m going to do this song instead. It’s really just like that song, except there are some differences, actually it’s not at all like that song. Never mind.”

When he did get to “Mexico” it he introduced his Cuban drummer who dazzled the audience. Following a 20 minute break, he pointed out that to be environmentally friendly the second half’s songs were written on the backside of his blackboard. He performed “Sonny’s Eyes” and a song he said he learned from the Dixie Chicks “Some Days You Gotta Dance.”

His horn section was terrific: Walt Fowler on trumpet and Lou “Blue Lou” Marini on sax and flute — you’d know him from the Saturday Night Live Band and The Blues Brothers.

James’ performance this time of “Carolina” used the backup singers like an a cappella church choir. I’ve never heard it so good.

He did a rather long introduction to “God Have Mercy on the Frozen Man” where he told the background to the story, then got off-track and decided to forget it. He similarly had a long intro to “Line Em Up” discussing the Nixon Whitehouse juxtaposed to the last verse relating to the marriage of 5,000 people by Rev. Moon at Madison Square Garden. He said there was so much matrimonial energy that some of it leaked outside and some people on the street were spontaneously married.

But one introduction caught the crowd by surprise.

“This is a song I wrote for my nephew… on the occasion of his birth. It’s been a number of years now. He was named after me and this was intended as a cowboy lullaby” — and now the audience has figured it out — “His grandmother is in the audience tonight.”

Could this have in fact been both the grandmother of Sweet Baby James as well as the mother of James Taylor? This performance had an an according and a steel string guitar. Lovely.

He did “Country Road” and donned his electric guitar to play “Steamroller Blues.” It turned into a jam session featuring solos by trumpet, keyboard, and guitar. He ended with “How Sweet It Is.”

The expected encore brought him back to do the old Drifters’ hit “Up On the Roof.” By now, the sky above the venue was dark. As he sang about “the stars up above” a shooting star lit the sky.

He followed this with “Summertime Blues” and left the stage, only to return with another encore and signing of autographs for the front row. A good time was had by all.

Bill Petro
www.billpetro.com

Theatre Review: The Philadelphia Story at the Old Vic in London

Sometimes you meet famous people when you attend the theatre in London — I did at a recent performance in early June. I attended the new London version of “The Philadelphia Story” which though most people know by the Katharine Hepburn-Cary Grant movie, was originally a play. Indeed, it had been originally customized to Hepburn. The one in London is being done this year while Kevin Spacey is the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre. He also stars as CK Dexter Haven. Jennifer Ehle has the staring role of Tracy Lord, and she makes the part her own. You may remember her as Lizzy Bennet from the British miniseries “Pride and Prejudice.” But more on this play later.

I hadn’t been to the Old Vic in years, indeed not since Patrick Stewart was doing his one-man version of “A Christmas Carol.” Back then I thought I’d go to the stage door around back to meet Captain Jean-Luc Piccard of the USS Enterprise. So did a couple of hundred other “Star Trek: the Next Generation” fans. While I did not get to meet him, I did get close enough to breathe the same air molecules. But that was all.

One time though, my waiting at the stage door paid off. I waited behind the Wyndhams Theatre in London following Dame Diana Rigg’s performance in “Media,” for which she subsequently won a Tony on Broadway. It’s a real Greek tragedy: everyone dies in the end, and she kills them. Dame Diana breezed out 45 minutes after the show and apologized to the two of us waiting for autographs. I said I’d been following her career since the TV show “The Avengers” in the 60’s. She cooed, “Oh, the black and white ones?” She signed my program and I floated back to my hotel.

The night I attended I had a good seat in the second row of the stalls (translation: first level of balcony) and during the second interval (translation: intermission, and yes, there were two) across the row in front of me walks Rosemary Harris returning to her seat. I could not take my eyes off her. You know her as the kindly Aunt May Parker from the current Spider-Man movies, but in her day she was an actress of great renown and prowess both in London and on Broadway, having won Tony, Obie and Emmy awards and has appeared opposite Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, and Michael Redgrave.

I spoke with her for a few minutes as we left the show. Her presence there was significant for two reasons. First, she had done 5 plays in this same theater, indeed, her picture is on the wall with Peter O’Toole in Hamlet in 1963. But more importantly, the starring role of tonight’s play was her daughter, Jennifer Ehle. I told her that I thought her daughter had done a marvelous job in the role, and I asked her what she thought. She thanked me and said it she was quite proud to watch her. I asked her if it was a thrill to she her daughter perform in the same theatre that she had performed in in 1963. She said yes and that she had to pinch herself… and that she had also performed here along with Richard Burton in Othello “in 1954, or was it 55?” (It was 1956.) And she had done Julius Caesar, Troilus & Cressida, and Uncle Vanya, and she couldn’t remember them all, there were five.

I told her that her daughter had made the part her own, and so she had. The play is a bit different than the movie, where Tracy’s brother Sandy is absorbed into the role of CK Dexter Haven, making Cary Grant’s role much larger. In the play, the lines and the plot elements go to her brother, consequently CK Dexter Haven has a rather smaller role. Ms. Elhe is the dominant role and she embodies the character so that you forget that she’s not the person you usually associate with the role. Her vocal range and presence on stage gave her a gravitas that grows on you. Her “American” accent was almost flawless, as were most of the British Actors. Her younger sister Dinah was played with whiny adenoidal delight by Talulah Riley in her stage debut. Nicholas Le Prevost’s Uncle Willy was a particular delight with a somewhat expanded role. Julia McKenzie’s Margaret Lord was a special breath of off-handed humor.

Kevin Spacey, as I mentioned, had a smaller role than expected, but he had fun with it. He delivered some of his lines as W.C. Fields or Groucho Marx. He was nimble and light on his feet and seemed almost outside the play at times. He did with volume and anger what Cary Grant did with tone and eyebrow. But Spacey’s emotion revealed nuances I hadn’t caught in my dozen viewings of the movie, and he can throw away a line like nobody but Sean Connery as 007.

As I left the play, Ms. Harris and I spoke for only three or four minutes, but at 78 she is gracious and poised. I told her it was a treat to meet her and she thanked me as we parted and walked into the night.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood theatre buff
www.billpetro.com