Photo Credit: Ben Wick
Even in their ’70s-’80s heyday, Steely Dan were something of an outlier. They were smooth enough to be considered yacht rock when critics at last devised the term, but between the strangeness of their subject matter, the often complex nature of their arrangements and Donald Fagen's dry vocal delivery, they still weren't ever going to be confused with, say Pablo Cruise.
Another band with Steely Dan's cumulative idiosyncrasies might otherwise be relegated to playing much smaller venues this late in their career. So, it can considered a triumph of eccentricity and good taste for the band to just about sell out the BMO Harris Pavilion Saturday.
Part of the appeal of Steely Dan for some is the antiseptic sound they achieved on their studio recordings, especially from 1977's Aja and onward. The challenge of replicating that sort of perfectionism was obviated by Fagen and longtime Dan partner Walter Becker being among 13 players and singers on the pavilion stage. The mass of sound overrode most any expectation of the material sounding as pristine as the source material still played regularly on classic hits and classic rock radio. The iteration of the group heard Saturday was a sort of mutant jazz-rock fusion big band.
And they made mutation a lovely thing, exuding a weird kind of warmth—perhaps not the first descriptor to come to most folks' minds regarding Steely Dan—out of the songs detailing various manifestations of irritation, dissatisfaction, unrequited desire and curmudgeonliness that distinguish the act's catalog.
And though the stage was populated with jazz virtuosos, not every song became a workout in the genre. Numbers such as "Peg," "Black Friday" and "Time Out Of Mind" gave plenty of room for the four-piece brass section to exercise their tightness and the occasional solo. There were times, though, when their rock leanings prevailed, as on "Old School" and that exercise in irony every time it airs on an oldies station, "Reelin’ In The Years." Becker even assayed the closest his group has likely ever come to country music, the Katy Lied deep cut "Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More"; its drunken humor complemented the soused-sounding between-song palaver he proffered, such as his F-bombed compliment to the audience on Steely Dan fans being the best people in the world and faux forgotten recollection of what tequila is before the trio of female background singers chimed in with a "Hey Nineteen" line about Cuervo Gold. The ladies were given the spotlight, too, by providing the lead vocals to "Dirty Work" in lieu of original vocalist Dave Palmer's absence.
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Triumphant as Dan's set was, Fagen couldn't help but express some envy at just how good opener Steve Winwood was. Alternating between keyboard and guitar, the veteran English rocker summarized much of his lengthy career in a mere nine songs. His stature is such that he ought to be touring solo, but he more than made do with his limited time. Bookending his set with the two biggest hits by the band that brought him to fame, The Spencer Davis Group, touched upon his stint with Blind Faith and "Higher Love" from his ’80s run as a pop radio solo hit maker. But his revisitations to his time with often icy, mercurial catalog of Traffic, especially "The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys," revealed just how much influence Winwood may have had on the men who brought him along on tour.
