The set started off with jazzy arrangements of Everyone’s Gone to the Movies and The Fez...

Keith Carlock - Drums
Freddie Washington - Bass
Jon Herington - Guitar
Jeff Young - Keyboards, b.vocals

Roger Rosenberg - Baritone Saxophone
Walt Weiskopf - Saxophone
Michael Leonhart - Trumpet
Jim Pugh - Trombone

...by the band

Enter Donald Fagen, Walter Becker & The Ladies:
Tawatha Agee - Backing Vocals
Catherine Russell - Backing Vocals
Cindy Mizelle - Backing Vocals


The rest of the set consisted of...
The Royal Scam
I Got the News
Show Biz Kids (funky JB feel arrangement)
Everything You Did
Two Against Nature
Hey Nineteen
Godwhacker
Glamour Profession
New Frontier
Gaucho (w/Walter Becker on lead vocal )
Babylon Sisters
Parker’s Band
Third World Man
Josie
Aja
Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart (featuring The Ladies)
Peg
Kid Charlemagne

Encore:
Don’t Take Me Alive
FM







The opening act was the Joey Defrancesco Trio.
(Byron Landham - Drums, Pat Bianchi - Fender Rhodes)

This was my first trip to the Nokia Theatre. Great sounding, well constructed venue.

What can I say. The band killed.
Especially Jon Herrington nailing those guitar parts and Keith Carlock's solid drumming...



...a section of Aja from a show done earlier this month in Orillia, Ontario.


But the main thing were those fabulously well written songs.



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

...

Kool!! Great pics, as usual, sir!!!

I'm lookin' forward to their show here...


How did Becker do on Gaucho? I realize his voice is...um....different...


...

Great set list and pics, thanks for sharing!

I've had to go to shows sparingly to save money but I'd love to have seen this.
[Edited 7/25/08 9:07am]

Wish I was there

Hope their coming to Detroit

Who is that in the picture behind Walter and below the horn section?

paligap said:

Thanks but those pics are courtesy of The Orange County Register

I didn't want to hassle trying to smuggle my camera pass security.
D.I. just dropped his in the basket with no problem.
He told me his pictures didn't come out very well unfortunately.

It was very weird watching Becker struggle through that tune.
At first I thought he was only going to do the 1st verse and then Fagen would take over.
But he had to scuffle through the whole thing looking uncomfortable the whole time.
Luckily, he had The Ladies there as a support system.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Slave2daGroove said:

One of the few bands i'd go out of my way to see.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

JazzyJ said:

Haven't figured that out yet.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

That confirms it - you suck. They're not coming here. Jealous. Glad you had a good time.

Just checked out their Web site, and I see that Cindy Mizelle is still singing backup.


That's how she entered my pop culture radar, but she's got a fantastic voice. Very similar to Meli'sa Morgan vocally.

theAudience said:

Just came from there website...Aug 15th and I'll be there with the rest of the "show biz kids."

That mystery photo is none other than Jamaican sound system and recording studio hotshot, the legendary, Osbourne Ruddock, AKA King Tubby, originator of the remix concept and one of the primary archetects of the Jamaican artform known as Dub music.

Why he gets a place of honor on the stage with Steely Dan I have no clue.

Get yer schoolin' here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Tubby



The sound he spawned:



One of his most well known hits:


[Edited 7/25/08 9:55am]

While I really enjoyed the show, their sound kicks ass live - i was sorely disappointed they didn't do anything from the one album of theirs I'm really into "Can't Buy a Thrill." Why ignore that one? I would have died to see "Do it Again" live.

"Aja" live was great though.

badujunkie said:

Forgot to call you.

I'd mentioned to an engineer friend that even though the sound was great, I thought they sounded even better last year in Irvine.
He told me that they're so freaky about their sound that they travel with their own p.a.
Unfortunately, the Nokia people made them use the house p.a.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:[quote]

badujunkie said:

Forgot to call you.

I'd mentioned to an engineer friend that even though the sound was great, I thought they sounded even better last year in Irvine.
He told me that they're so freaky about their sound that they travel with their own p.a.
Unfortunately, the Nokia people made them use the house p.a.


tA

i know i thought of you when i 's at the show - was wondering which one was you - who's tA?

That sounds obsessive on their part - but it paid off. I'm sure outside sounded better.

Damn..Becker sang lead on 'Gaucho'... damn.

badujunkie said:

We were sitting center orchestra, a few rows in front of the main mixing console.
Very good listening positions.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

Damn I just missed them in Berkeley last night! I looked up ticket prices for their Monday show- $199! $65 for general admission bleachers! It's no wonder I never go to big shows anymore.

NDRU said:

I hear you. They are very few current acts that i'd care to see even for FREE.
Steely Dan is one of the groups where I know they're gonna play well, sound good and have a time tested catalog of quality songs.

Because of the number of great songs, the setlist isn't even a concern.
They can even play..."somebody else's favorite song."


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

DakutiusMaximus said:

Thanks for ending the mystery.

My guess is that it has to do with their eclectic listening habits in general and Walter's latest album (Circus Money) in particular.

From a 5/2008 Rolling Stone interview Walter Becker did...

Have you and Larry Klein been friends for a long time?
We've been friends for a while and I was at a point where I had about 800 different ideas for records that I thought I might make. And Larry said, "I'd love to make a record some time," and he was very helpful in condensing the ideas that I had down to a good workable set. I'd been listening to a lot of Jamaican music from the Sixties and Seventies and there was all sorts of ideas I had about the rhythms and bass patterns that they used and also about the way in which they re-used tracks, re-mixed tracks, the way in which ideas circulated, filtered through their culture via records — successive records with the same rhythm, sometimes with exactly the same track, sometimes with the track and the rhythm re-cut in somewhat in a more current style. I could just listen to that stuff endlessly, just the way those guys play, the way that the drums and bass interact is fantastic. That was the jumping off point and then we just ended up writing. A couple of things came out sounding sort of Jamaican and [some] didn't, but that was the idea, I guess.

What Jamaican music, specifically?
Well we're talkin' about everything from the sort of Rock Steady period on. I'd say everything from ska through 1980, when they started using drum machines. So that would be ska, Rock Steady reggae, rockers, steppers, all these different variations on the patterns as the drumming changed a little bit and the tempos changed. A lot of Lee Perry stuff, the stuff that the rhythm section from the Wailers played on — Style Scott, Sly & Robbie, Flabba Holt. There's just a ton of music from that period.

I notice a lot of Jamaican influence on 11 Tracks of Whack, as well.
I had started listening to that way back in those days and at one point Donald [Fagen] and I actually experimented with the idea of doing an album with reggae-type beats on it in the Eighties. I think "Snowbound" that was eventually on one of his albums was from that period. And the original version of "West of Hollywood" was from that period. It's always fascinated me the way they use the same elements of rhythm and blues playing, but they turn them around in a way and yet they still get a great feel on it, you know? And as a rhythm section guy, those rhythm sections are sort of the ultimate — the tightness of it, the complexity of the feels.

...http://www.rollingstone.c...ter_becker

Although not specifically mentioned, King Tubby's material must've been in his listening cycles.


Donald Fagen had a corresponding b&w graphic on his keyboard of...



...Duke Ellington's band.



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 7/27/08 15:32pm]

theAudience said:

And I've never seen them. It may be something I regret some day.

It's hard for me to put a price on seeing great art being created right in front of you, but the theaters seem to have no trouble doing it!

Sounds like an amazing show! I swear,one of these days I'm gonna go to a Steely Dan concert.I already have all of their albums,I just need to see them in concert now