Steely Dan Fans Show No Reservations at Soboba Reservation!
June Caldwell
July 30, 2006
Steely Dan Live at Soboba Reservation 7/21/06
As Steely Dan sauntered onto the arena stage on July 21 on an Indian Reservation at Soboba, Walter Becker said, “We’re happy to be on Indian land here, because the Wilson Brothers are suing the f--- out of us! I don’t think they can touch us here…they can’t sue us for a joke can they?” This referred to a letter on the homepage of the Steely Dan Website demanding an apology from Luke and Owen Wilson for stealing the plot for ‘You, Me and Dupree’ from the Steely Dan song, ‘Cousin Dupree’. Of course when you hear the lyrics of Cousin Dupree (which they played early on in the set), you’re not sure if it has to do with the movie, or with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s tastily twisted sense of humor, or both. Such is price of the legendary mystery status of Steely Dan. Most of their songs are based on a shady someone all of us know, or a real person they know… or are they? Most of the subjects of their songs are hapless and beaten yet somehow made glorious in the light of the flawless sparkling magic the Dan’s poignant melodies and almost unbearably lush yet light as a breeze harmonies imbue their memory with forever for the enchanted listener.
Nonetheless, I was not prepared for how roudy rockin’ the show would be! Since we were on a reservation, it was anything goes. We had just seen Muse, our favorite band, and met them backstage 2 days before, so I thought Steely Dan would be a chill-out in comparison. But, to clarify, we are hard-core Dan fans! For example, my husband and his drinkin buddy from Colorado, Mike spent two years with the only communication being texting Steely Dan lyrics to each other that fit the news of the day! We still have not heard back from Mike, who saw the Steely Dan concert at the Red Rock Amphitheatre in Colorado a few days after this show, with his son. We’re hoping for the best!
Instead of being a snoozer, everyone at Steely Dan rushed the pit and was singing along and there were about 8 people who crowd surfed onto the stage! It was a bunch of passionate Dan lovers (like us) drunk and about 3 generations strong… all there air-guitaring, singing along and wilder than the Muse audience! Donald Fagen looked BLOWN AWAY by the response, and they did a killer set!
Although the duo from the 70’s whose music invented the hyphen genre, being cool-jazz- rock-blues-pop, the feeling was anything but cool. It was in the desert in California, during the middle of the heat wave in record heat of about 120 degrees at night. Maybe that had something to do with it, we were already sweating, so any pretensions of trying to be ‘cool’ were out the window! This was a crowd of hard drinkin, hearty eating desert folk, mostly baby boomers. We had a blast, the security guards were mainly in their 20s and the crowd of hard core baby boomer partiers with a couple of generations in tow kept getting busted for sitting in each other’s seats. We were all giggling as we juggled our way throughout the stadium. I had been going to so many live shows that week, I planned to snooze through this one, and actually did almost fall asleep during the first few songs. It started out soft and loungy…until they hit Bodhisattva. All of a sudden I found myself grabbing my husband and we were dancing and twirling in the aisle. I looked up and there was a growing crowd rushing the pit, so we ran up there too. We all got kicked back, but the groundwork had been laid. We were collectively there to party and the party had begun!
A hilarious segway had Donald Fagen asking two of his saxophonists, an alto and a baritone to come up and settle their argument once and for all. Thus ensued some dueling saxes that set the place on fire.
They stage was populated with about 10 musicians and singers. Becker and Fagen have spent their careers surrounding themselves with the best in the industry and this was no exception. On this leg of their tour, they were without Michael MacDonald, which seemed to open the way for more free improvisation and just going for fun in the moment. They did their classic hit ‘Dirty Work’ with two soulful female singers taking the lead vocals.
They of course went through Aja, and the energy level just grew and grew. When the crystal guitars of ‘Don’t Take Me Alive’ blazed on, the group of people around us that were starting to timidly get up and dance (and then sit down when the folks behind us complained) just gave it up and our whole row stood up and danced singing along.
By the time of the encore, a healthy contingent had rushed to the stage (us included of course) and the singing along with ‘Kid Charlemagne’ and ‘My Old School’ was deafening. Especially the lines ‘Is there gas in the car? Yes there’s gas in the car!!!....I think the people down hall know who you are!!!” in Kid Charlemagne whose story is based loosely on ‘Bear’, the chemist and roady for the Dead. We could hardly hear the band, we were all yelling so loud! The usually kicked-back Donald Fagen and Walter Becker looked a cross between amused and shocked, as we all screamed and applauded, high- fived each other, and frankly were amazed there were that many other folks out there who were just discovering – or never stopped loving Steely Dan as much as we do!
As Steely Dan sauntered onto the arena stage on July 21 on an Indian Reservation at Soboba, Walter Becker said, “We’re happy to be on Indian land here, because the Wilson Brothers are suing the f--- out of us! I don’t think they can touch us here…they can’t sue us for a joke can they?” This referred to a letter on the homepage of the Steely Dan Website demanding an apology from Luke and Owen Wilson for stealing the plot for ‘You, Me and Dupree’ from the Steely Dan song, ‘Cousin Dupree’. Of course when you hear the lyrics of Cousin Dupree (which they played early on in the set), you’re not sure if it has to do with the movie, or with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s tastily twisted sense of humor, or both. Such is price of the legendary mystery status of Steely Dan. Most of their songs are based on a shady someone all of us know, or a real person they know… or are they? Most of the subjects of their songs are hapless and beaten yet somehow made glorious in the light of the flawless sparkling magic the Dan’s poignant melodies and almost unbearably lush yet light as a breeze harmonies imbue their memory with forever for the enchanted listener.
Nonetheless, I was not prepared for how roudy rockin’ the show would be! Since we were on a reservation, it was anything goes. We had just seen Muse, our favorite band, and met them backstage 2 days before, so I thought Steely Dan would be a chill-out in comparison. But, to clarify, we are hard-core Dan fans! For example, my husband and his drinkin buddy from Colorado, Mike spent two years with the only communication being texting Steely Dan lyrics to each other that fit the news of the day! We still have not heard back from Mike, who saw the Steely Dan concert at the Red Rock Amphitheatre in Colorado a few days after this show, with his son. We’re hoping for the best!
Instead of being a snoozer, everyone at Steely Dan rushed the pit and was singing along and there were about 8 people who crowd surfed onto the stage! It was a bunch of passionate Dan lovers (like us) drunk and about 3 generations strong… all there air-guitaring, singing along and wilder than the Muse audience! Donald Fagen looked BLOWN AWAY by the response, and they did a killer set!
Although the duo from the 70’s whose music invented the hyphen genre, being cool-jazz- rock-blues-pop, the feeling was anything but cool. It was in the desert in California, during the middle of the heat wave in record heat of about 120 degrees at night. Maybe that had something to do with it, we were already sweating, so any pretensions of trying to be ‘cool’ were out the window! This was a crowd of hard drinkin, hearty eating desert folk, mostly baby boomers. We had a blast, the security guards were mainly in their 20s and the crowd of hard core baby boomer partiers with a couple of generations in tow kept getting busted for sitting in each other’s seats. We were all giggling as we juggled our way throughout the stadium. I had been going to so many live shows that week, I planned to snooze through this one, and actually did almost fall asleep during the first few songs. It started out soft and loungy…until they hit Bodhisattva. All of a sudden I found myself grabbing my husband and we were dancing and twirling in the aisle. I looked up and there was a growing crowd rushing the pit, so we ran up there too. We all got kicked back, but the groundwork had been laid. We were collectively there to party and the party had begun!
A hilarious segway had Donald Fagen asking two of his saxophonists, an alto and a baritone to come up and settle their argument once and for all. Thus ensued some dueling saxes that set the place on fire.
They stage was populated with about 10 musicians and singers. Becker and Fagen have spent their careers surrounding themselves with the best in the industry and this was no exception. On this leg of their tour, they were without Michael MacDonald, which seemed to open the way for more free improvisation and just going for fun in the moment. They did their classic hit ‘Dirty Work’ with two soulful female singers taking the lead vocals.
They of course went through Aja, and the energy level just grew and grew. When the crystal guitars of ‘Don’t Take Me Alive’ blazed on, the group of people around us that were starting to timidly get up and dance (and then sit down when the folks behind us complained) just gave it up and our whole row stood up and danced singing along.
By the time of the encore, a healthy contingent had rushed to the stage (us included of course) and the singing along with ‘Kid Charlemagne’ and ‘My Old School’ was deafening. Especially the lines ‘Is there gas in the car? Yes there’s gas in the car!!!....I think the people down hall know who you are!!!” in Kid Charlemagne whose story is based loosely on ‘Bear’, the chemist and roady for the Dead. We could hardly hear the band, we were all yelling so loud! The usually kicked-back Donald Fagen and Walter Becker looked a cross between amused and shocked, as we all screamed and applauded, high- fived each other, and frankly were amazed there were that many other folks out there who were just discovering – or never stopped loving Steely Dan as much as we do!