Tonight...for MY listening pleasure...

[Mikey]

Our seats are in the third row, center section.

I should at least have a good view of the underside of Walter Becker's guitar.

[Mikey]

Basically the same band they toured with when I saw them two years ago (and for ten years or so before that), and they were outstanding.
The standouts include Carlock, Herrington, Washington and the singers.

[Screw_Michigan]

Rack Mikey. I always wanted to see Steely Dan live until I heard their recent live performances. Almost adult contemporary.

[Screw_Michigan]

Hopefully they'll play Show Biz Kids for you.

[Mikey]

Hopefully they'll play Show Biz Kids for you.

They did. A very different arrangement than on the album, but really, really good (we picked up a couple of Steely Dan T-shirts, BTW). Also Bodhisattva and a lot of other good tunes.

This was the best show I've been to for a long time, if not ever, for several reasons. I'll explain with some pictures shortly.

[Mikey]

Humphrey's is a resort on Shelter Island in San Diego bay. They've had this outdoor concert venue for probably close to 30 years and always have a great summer concert series. Over the years we've probably been there 12 to 15 times. Years ago we saw Spyro Gyra, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn, and others I can't remember. After we moved from San Diego to Henderson, NV in the early 90s we pretty much stopped going, for obvious reasons. When we moved back to LoCal to Fallbrook 14 years ago, we didn't really think about going back there for quite a while because it's an hour or more from our house and, though a nice location, the chairs are pretty uncomfortable and packed in pretty tightly. There are some rooms with balconies surrounding the concert stage and I always wondered how you get into one of those rooms.

In spite of the drawbacks, they always had good sound and we started going to a some shows again a few years ago.

When they put out their summer schedule for this year and I saw Steely Dan on the list (they had never played there before) I made sure I was on line on Ticketmaster as soon as the seats went on sale. Even so, by the time I got in all of the center section was already sold out, and I didn't want shitty seats where a couple of fat drunk pigs would stand in front of me for the entire show (this happened last time I was there for the Tedeschi-Trucks Band). So...I clicked on the "Humphrey's Lexus Premium Package" link and found I could get seats in the third row as part of a room-dinner-show package. It was a little pricey, but I heard the restaurant was good and it wouldn't hurt to have a room an not have to drive home afterwards, so I went for it.

All I knew when we checked in at 4:00 p.m. was that we had a "Tropical View King room" along with our dinner and show tickets. When we walked into the room we noticed that there two queen size beds and no king, but this was the view from the balcony.



As we marveled at the view and unpacked, Steely Dan came out and started doing their sound check. I also noticed that the sound board was on the balcony right below us, so I figured that the sound from the balcony would probably be better than in our seats.



This was the warmup act. A three person blues band, that was OK. They played for about 30 minutes, and then we went down to our seats. We were in the third row just right of center, right below Donald Fagen's Rhodes.



This is a view back up to our room. It's just above and to the left of the green canopy.



More later. I have to get ready to go to a memorial service.

[Screw_Michigan]

Nice photos. King of the World is also one of my favorite SD songs.

[Screw_Michigan]

This is the boot I used to have...epic shit.

[War Wagon]

hope they played this, love the horns.

[Mikey]

hope they played this, love the horns.

They did, Wags, and they tore it up. Wish I had recorded it on my iPhone but it was going dead by then.
I have a few poorly recorded videos from the show and I'll try to get them up on YouTube. Not sure it's worth it though.

They had a four piece horn section:
Bari sax
Alto/tenor
Trumpet
Trombone

Hope you're doing OK there, Wags. Sorry to hear of your travails the past week. Those health scares really suck.

[BSmack]

Rack Mikey. I always wanted to see Steely Dan live until I heard their recent live performances. Almost adult contemporary.

This coming from someone who thinks "Back In The High Life" was a great song.

[Screw_Michigan]

Back in the High Life is basically adult contemporary. When have I ever argued otherwise, Kunta Kintae?