You've Got a Friend in James Taylor - One-Man Band Tour, Erie, PA, May 5
May 06 '06
The Bottom Line If you get the chance to see James Taylor in concert, don't miss it. He's terrific.
I am, at the moment, gainfully unemployed. Except for the gainful part. Oh, I’ve got an odd job here and there that brings in enough money for me to keep my head above water, but I have been on what you might call an artistic hiatus for the past couple months, ever since my seasonal employment ended. The idea is that with so much free time I will finally become the brilliant J. K. Rowlingesque novelist or Paul Simonesque songwriter I’ve always hoped to be. The progress doesn’t quite measure up, but that’s another story. Anyway, about a month ago, I was tuned in to the oldies station on the radio - it was one of those Maria-ish days when I felt as though I had to sing or I would just burst - and I heard the Dee-jays chattering excitedly about an upcoming concert. The performer? The illustrious James Taylor.
Everyone on the station seemed to think this was a very Big Deal, almost as exciting as Elton John’s 2000 show that sold out in minutes (and no, I did not hold one of the tickets), way more exciting than Art Garfunkel’s concert later that year. (Well, we can agree to disagree.) At any rate, James Taylor has been near the top of my Musicians to See in Concert list for quite some time now, so I was almost as psyched as the fellas over at Froggy 94.7, and my excitement increased when I learned that I would be able to try for a chance to win tickets the next week. I listened to the radio all day for four days, frantically dialing whenever James’ dulcet tones emanated across the airwaves. For the week, I had a job, and though the paycheck wasn't guaranteed, it would be quite a sweet deal if I received it.
By Thursday afternoon, I had all but given up on my quest for a pair of golden tickets, but then I heard James Taylor yet again, picked up the phone and dialed, hoping to be caller number nine. No such luck. Caller two. Caller five. Busy. And then, by some minor miracle, on my fourth call during the song, “Congratulations caller nine!” I let myself float along in my euphoric state until the next day, when the names of all the qualifiers from the week were placed into a bowl from which two were chosen. My name stayed in the bowl.
Of course, I decided at this point that the most logical course of action was for me to purchase tickets myself. The cheapest seats, in the very top two rows of the theater, ran just under $50 a piece, so I sprang for those, wishing I was uninhibited enough to decimate my savings with tickets that would have landed us in the front row. I’ve been in the second row at a concert twice. Once was Gordon Lightfoot, and all the seats that night cost the same price. The other was Emma’s Revolution, just last week, which was free. Sometimes the best things in life are. Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a bad seat in the Warner Theater in Erie, PA, and this was a comforting thought as I purchased my tickets.
I guess I’ve always been a James Taylor fan, though I’m not sure I’ve always known it. I didn’t become a full-fledged enthusiast until, during my famous Art Garfunkel period, I discovered that James and Art had worked together and fostered a deep mutual respect. I listened with appreciation to their collaborations on What a Wonderful World and Cryin’ in the Rain while keeping my ears perked up for Fire and Rain, You’ve Got a Friend and other familiar favorites on the radio. This exquisite artist described by Art as having perfect pitch burrowed down into my soul, making a cozy home for himself. I cheered when we purchased a concert DVD he had put out; I applauded heartily when I went to see his brother Livingston live and found that he possessed clear echoes of his famous brother’s tender vocal timber. But getting to hear James himself live? That sort of opportunity doesn’t come around too often. Beyond the obvious two or three hours of marvelous music, going to concerts is all about forging a sense of personal connection to an admired artist. While I didn’t have a chat with James backstage after the concert as I did with Art or meet him during the intermission when he asked me to direct him to the cookies (that was Livingston, and the venue was a church as the Warner was undergoing repairs at the time), I can’t imagine anyone emerged from the evening without feeling some small sense of camaraderie with James - and each other.
Accompanying me to the concert were my parents and younger brother. The four of us seem to have fewer opportunities lately to engage in family activities, so I was looking forward to this evening with just my parents and brother. Although Nathan ribbed me on the way there about the fact that all but one concert we’ve attended together has targeted the over-40 set and on the way back about the fact that the musician and half the fans who came to see him were bald, his ears have become accustomed to finding beauty in musicians most of his peers might overlook. (He was referring to Green Day as the odd concert out, and I could have called him on Clay Aiken, but Clay does have a certain way with middle-aged moms… Still. There were definitely other teenagers at that concert too.) Ironically, just as he was saying that he wouldn’t see anyone he knew at this concert, the parents of a classmate materialized and said that their daughter had wanted to go too and what a nice sister Nathan had for getting him a ticket. I also saw someone I knew, at intermission. He was a teacher of mine in high school, and Nathan and I recognized him at the same moment, just in time catch his eye and wave. There probably were other familiar faces there, but it was a packed house and I didn‘t see them. I’m not sure how long it took for this concert to sell out, but sell out it did. There’s power in such a crowd. All it was missing was a flurry of cell phones posing as lighters during the slow songs. I considered whipping mine out, but as no one else did, I would have felt rather silly.
I did see several flashes going off throughout the concert, and I always wonder how so many people manage to take pictures when photography is strictly prohibited. That’s probably where the cell phones came in here. Isn’t technology wonderful? But I definitely saw some flashes that must have derived from a larger camera. Anyway, though I wanted a tangible reminder of the concert, I resisted the temptation to bring my camera, knowing we were up in the nosebleeds and that it would probably be confiscated. There really was no security check, so I probably could have gotten away with it, but I consoled myself with the obligatory overpriced T-shirt. I settled on a pale blue one with a sketchy image on the front of a bus whose occupants include three people, a goat and a fish. I think it’s a goat. Or maybe a cockatiel. Yeah, I’m stumped. I probably should have gotten the shirt with JT’s picture plastered all over it, but I thought this one was fun. It set me back $35. They were only taking cash, or I would probably have spent more, but as there were no programs to be purchased, I wasn’t torn between the book and the T-shirt. I wonder why there weren’t any programs, though… Before we got up to our seats, we passed the mobs of people refreshing themselves at the “watering hole.” When I saw Gordon Lightfoot, one man in the front row had a little too much to drink at intermission and spent the second half of the show shouting semi-coherent things at the stage, sometimes in the middle of a song. It was annoying but also rather funny.
There weren’t many drunken outbursts at this concert, though a couple people were moved to holler “We love you, James Taylor!” and “Thank God for James Taylor!” To the former, he replied, “I love you too!” Pause. “Helps that we don’t know each other.” Longer pause. “Actually, this is all rather sudden…” He was gracious to his fans as he took the stage, stopping as he walked across to shake hands and sign autographs for the lucky folks seated a couple feet from him. I said to myself that I’d paid more than a hundred dollars per concert ticket for Simon and Garfunkel; why couldn’t I do the same here and land myself in the front row? Being broke is a bummer. I’ve never seen someone sign autographs during a concert like that, and he did it every time he came back on stage, four times all told. The first time he must have kept going for about ten minutes. He signed albums and posters and the like, and in some cases he signed t-shirts that were being worn at the moment; that was a tricky maneuver. It must have been amazing for the fans in the front, but after a couple minutes of this the rest of the audience started to get antsy. He placated the masses with an apologetic wave, and soon he was ready to begin, launching into an enthusiastically received Something in the Way She Moves as the single pale ray of a spotlight shone benevolently down upon him.
The One-Man Band Tour is one of those rare stripped-down affairs. When Elton John came, it was just him and the piano. Similarly, James (bedecked in jeans and a button-up shirt) just had his guitar - well, several of them, among which he alternated - and an accomplished keyboardist by the name of Larry Goldings accompanying him on the elegant double-decker piano. The stage set-up was very classy. Above the piano were a couple chandeliers, and off to the side was a series of what looked to be four panels of a fancy iron gate. Behind these was a white backdrop, and throughout the concert the lighting behind it changed many times, which was very effective. The other major prop on the stage was a projection screen. It wasn’t enormous, but it was big enough that we had a clear view of it from the back of the theater. This screen provided a homey element as James used video clips and photographs to illustrate his songs or his introductions to them. “Wouldn’t you know it,” he quipped, “you buy a ticket to see a show, and some guy starts showing you his photo album.” At one point in the concert, he illustrated how this particular tool might go awry, delicately singing You’ve Got a Friend as video footage of tanks rolling down the street during World War II assaulted our eyes. (He performed the song in earnest earlier in the set after lauding Carole King’s generosity in allowing him to record the song first.) Probably my favorite video-aided transition occurred very early in the concert as he bid a good evening to all us wonderful Erie folks and immediately followed it up with a picture of The Frozen Man. Is his set list the same for every concert? Because any Erieite will tell you that we all feel a bit like popsicles before the winter is over. It was a beautiful little comedic moment, and I’m not even sure if it was intentional, since its purpose was to introduce the next song. I also enjoyed the fact that during intermission, we were treated to a trippy video that looked to be an ultra-retro advertisement from the movies encouraging patrons to buy refreshments.
James spent as much time talking as he did singing, but I didn’t mind. He infused his stories with warmth, wit and self-deprecation, speaking, much like Garrison Keillor does, as though everything were off-the-cuff. I’m sure he follows some sort of script, but it certainly seemed as though there was a lot of ad libbing going on, and he came across as a natural storyteller entertaining friends in an intimate environment. He inserted lots of little jokes, such as when, in the introduction to Line ’Em Up, he showed a picture of President Nixon during his resignation speech and said it was something that should probably happen more often or when he showed footage of the Necco factory in preparation for Valentine’s Day and said the images would be more appropriate if the candy hearts read “EAT LEAD.” During a lengthy introduction to Steamroller the last song before the intermission, he brought out his electric guitar and said how much better it was than those steam models, “and I’m not even going to talk about the horse-drawn variety.” The illustrations he used ranged from the general to the personal, and we got to see pictures of James’ parents (individual portraits shot half a world away from each other when his dad was on a polar expedition); the young nephew who inspired the tender Sweet Baby James; and a giddy shot of James riding his bike through a beauteous North Carolina landscape during Carolina in My Mind, as gorgeous a tribute to a state as Take Me Home, Country Roads and as aching an expression of homesickness as Homeward Bound. There were also images of him with Carole King and Joni Mitchell; an attempt at a forensic sketch of a girl he’d become close to in the Mediterranean but never photographed; and an advertisement for a Cortina, the car he had in 1968, which he termed the best year of his life, though he added drily that the fact the people riding in the car were smiling was an indication they hadn’t spent much time in it.
Because he spent so much time talking, the concert, which ran a little over two hours, wasn’t stuffed to the gills with songs. Still, there was a good variety, and the combination of Golding’s skillful keyboard-playing and James’ heartfelt vocals and intricate guitar work created a convergence of exquisite musicianship that lasted throughout the evening. There was also a large wooden contraption that played a key role in two numbers, providing industrial percussion. Two other songs - Traveling Star and Shower the People - were augmented by the accompaniment of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus via the video screen. Other songs putting in an appearance included the nostalgic Never Die Young, the bluesy Mean Old Man and the luminously reflective Secret of Life. Some songs were wholly unfamiliar, such as his ode to his favorite hot dog stand in California or his Dylan-esque rant with a bullhorn that came equipped with lyrics on the screen. It was a good mix of the hits and the obscure, and all came with a story, some longer than others. We were treated to two encores, first Fire and Rain and Copper Line and then, a fitting choice to finish off the night, You Can Close Your Eyes. And shortly after I got home, I did, despite my determination to stay awake long enough to finish this review. But my eyes were wide open throughout my time at the Warner, as were my ears, and both were gratified. James Taylor is generous to his fans.
Do I wish I’d been closer to the stage? Sure. But he made us all feel close to him as he shared the stories of his life and gift of his music with humility and humor. I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to see this exceptional artist at work, and I hope he continues to hone his craft far into the future. We’ve all got a friend in James Taylor.
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Epinions.com ID:
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Member: Erin McCarty
Location: Erie, PA
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