Everthe Beatle next door, Ringo Starr is modest enough to understand that, belovedas he may be, few fans actually want to sit through an entire set of his solomaterial. For the past two decades, he’s been touring with a cleveracknowledgement of this: his All Starr Band, a rotating lineup of famous (orsemi-famous) musicians who augment his shows with performances of their ownhits. The grounded format lets Ringo sing a few charming, karaoke-casual songs,flash his trademark peace sign, then settle behind his familiar drum kit beforethe novelty of Ringo-as-frontman wears off. Thisyear’s All Starr roster reads morelike the cast of a VH1 celebreality show than a Super Bowl halftime show, butthe players still brought some excellent songs to the table Wednesday night.Colin Hay sung several amiable Men at Work hits, Billy Squier did a couple ofcharged arena-rockers and even less-than-famous bassist Hamish Stuart claimed ahighlight, leading a run-through of his Average White Band’s magnum funk opus“Pick Up the Pieces” with Edgar Winter on saxophone.
Winterwas a constant highlight. He did “Free Ride,” of course, but mostly he humblyabided by the collaborative spirit of the evening and played sideman, happilyswitching instruments as needed. He seemed to take particular glee doing thedoor-knock hand-claps and ’80s-pop sax lines of Men at Work’s “Who Can It BeNow?”
Onlysoft-rocker Gary Wright killed the greatest-hits pacing of the show, doing alanguid three songstwo of which, mind you, weren’t “Dream Weaver.” Winter, forcomparison, only did two songs (unless his prog-rock epic “Frankenstein” countstwice). Winter didn’t even plug the album of new material he’d releasedliterally just a day before the show, yet Wright felt the need to do a deepcut.
Spry,lovable and Dorian Gray youthful, Ringo closed the show with a few more simplepleasures from his catalog and a sing-along of “Give Peace a Chance”not tomake any grand political statement about current wars, but simply because it’sa song audiences enjoy hearing.
