XDA

Went with the handsome Sheila to Chautauqua to see fellow Virginian Bruce Hornsby who can flat out play some piano. He sings well (but his good strong voice seemed to come and go) and he can write a good song. But I have to tell this story. After an enforced time not buying CDs for about 3 years, I went to the used CD store and bought the then new formulation of Fleetwood Mac (with Dave Mason as the new Lindsay Buckingham and a second generation Bramlett as the new Stevie Nicks) (It was horrible) and a Hornsby album, the name of which escapes me. It had twelve songs on it, all about a lonely rock piano player on the road and dealing with women in one way or another. I'm sure there was some variation in the melodies and subject matter, but it was a very subtle variation and, as with the Fleetwood Mac CD, I took the loss and sold it back to the store the next day.

But there are better songs out there; some of the ones that got early radio play (The Way it is--which he played, and Every Little Kiss--which he did not). The bulk of the concert was songs (perhaps all of them) from Hot House, the best of which is Spider Fingers (which I'm led to believe was his nickname when Hornsby played with the Grateful Dead).

Hornsby's band is terrific, especially on the bass and drums, but the white boys on woodwinds and guitar/backup singing and mellotron like keyboards were no slouches. If I had a complaint, it was that he verges too often on jazz for my tastes, with swirling solos and everyone playing alone together until they hit a break and reform as a rock/pop band. And some of the songs were a little loosey goosey in structure, but it was a very fun concert and, no doubt due to his Grateful Dead play ethic, he was still playing when we left after the second encore, with no sign that he'd be stopping any time soon.

Not exactly my taste (guitar over keyboards any day) but you could do a lot worse than attending a Bruce Hornsby concert, a whole lot worse, as I'll talk about soon.