Some of you will remember my review of a John Oates concert we went to back in February.
Oates had explained that he and Daryl Hall did not “break up”. They did not have a falling out or anything like that. He stated that the pair had accomplished everything they set out to do and wanted to go out on top and subtly slipped out of the limelight. Whether this is actually factual I know not. But it is true that they are doing a tour which he let slip out that night.
Doll and I saw them at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee last night.
Tears for Fears were the opening act. (There may have been another one but we arrived late so who knows). T4F sounded great. Their set was tight and crisp.
Daryl Hall and John Oates (which is, BTW, their official band title. Not Hall & Oates) also sounded fantastic. But they did some change ups on their songs which threw the audience off a bit. Was a tad strange. The last time I saw them was over 30 years ago and they did not do anything like this then.
Both of these gentlemen are ginormously talented. But charismatic Daryl Hall is the energy that powers everything. At 70 he has vim that other musicians don’t have at 35. He completely out shined the mellow Oates.
Even with the odd changes to their songs I highly recommend you take in one of their shows if you can. Thoroughly enjoyable!
Live at Daryl’s house continues to be one of the best shows ever made. Mr. Hall’s enthusiasm and energy are evident in every single show and his skills continue to be top-notch.
I saw them twice back in the 1980s, including once during their infamous “no color” tour (they only used white light; prolly more of a big deal to those of us who do lighting ).
They are one of those acts, like KC & the Sunhsine Band, where you think maybe they’re cheesy but when you’re at a show you realize you know every song by heart and that they’re good songs.
Do you not think the odd changes were made to accommodate Hall’s lessened vocal range? I’m not meaning to disparage but age tends to kill the high end of many singers and I don’t recall a single recent listening of Hall that made me think “he can still hit those notes”.
I didn’t even know about it until my wife turned me on to it about 2 years ago. One of the great things about it is seeing some of the older guests who still ooze talent through their pores. For some artists talent knows no age.
No. The changes were more like when you compare an original version of a song to it’s dance mix or to it’s abbreviated K-Tel record version. There were change ups in the music tempo and everything, mostly faster. It’s a bit hard to describe but the changes weren’t based on vocals.
It has. And each of their songs are unique. None of their songs sound similar to another. Few artists of the same longevity are able to pull that off with the same success.
Dylan does this. Probably just to keep from getting bored.
When I saw him live he switched so many songs around that, if you were coming to hear Greatest Hits, Vol. II, you’d’a been pissed off. Old ballads were now funkified, rock anthems were mellow folk, etc. All of a sudden in a jazzy saxophone & bass piece with Ray Charles-type vocals I caught "“Do you, Mr. Jones?”
And he switched Tangled Up in Blue’s lyrics around to third person, and told the story from the woman’s perspective.
Ok, this is more than DH&JO did, but I had to tell the story.
I was not a fan back in the day, but my millenial sons, who know of them through the Darryl’s House show, are. And so are their friends. Nice to see them connecting with a whole new generation.
I do admire Mr. Oates for all the charity work he does in Colorado. His involvement is very low key, but his contributions are impactful. Just the way I like my charitable celebrities to be.
I saw them a few days earlier in Des Moines. I agree that T4F played a super tight set. I was impressed at how well they sounded as compared to what I hear the radio. Their voices haven’t degraded a bit and really put on a great show.
H&O did a great job as well. One of the small things that we enjoyed was the random intros they played to the well know songs that had you guessing what they were actually going to play. It sounds dumb mentioning it now, but I thought it was cool.
Oh, the sax solo on Maneater was way to long, but I hate that song.
