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My wife and I agree, this was not one of Leon's best performances. It was shoter than the last time we saw Leon in Buffalo. He seemed to spend even more time than usual goofing with the board guy. And what happened to the white suit? Call it Leon lite.
I don't think many people get humor anymore. This man is amazing on guitar and very funny. The two hour non stop set was entertaining all the way through.
The opening act -- Eric Henning, a magician -- was disappointing. The drunk folks up next to the stage loved him; the rest of us, not so much. He was technically proficient, but it was nice when he stopped talking. Leon Redbone, however, was absolutely fabulous. I am so glad the Birchmere had him back. We'll go see him whenever he's in town.
The opening act of the local magician was lame. Even lamer was the highly anticipated performance of Leon Redbone. He hardly played anything, because, according to him, he was never in tune and couldn't get his guitar tuned properly. He spent most of the show mumbling about his strings and every once in a while playing and singing short snippets of some songs. He acted like he was on drugs during most of the show. The show was mostly the Paul Asaro (his piano player) show with Leon trying to tune his guitar. Paul Asaro was also laboring with the out of tune piano that The Birchmere always has on stage. The biggest attraction for me was not the headliner but the fact that recently retired Channel 4 news anchor Joe Krebs and his wife were attending the show and sat behind me. I wasted my money on this crap show!
He spent more time tuning the guitar than performing. There was no energy. The piano player was more entertaining and played more than the main attraction.
Leon Redbone is of course a great entertainer and artist, but at the Birchmere on 3/31, he was off. He continually complained that he could not tune his guitar, that his guitar strings were bad. For someone with his experience, this excuse, given throughout the show, was unacceptable. His usual banter was off, and way too much delay between songs. He was not receptive to requests for the most part, and a lot of his most loved songs were requested to no avail. As a result of his continual delays, he played few songs. Although I love his work, I would not opt to see him live again.
Last night's show started with a funny magician as the warm up act. And a cute family of 4 sat in the front, everyone, including 2 little girls, dressed like Leon--fedoras, mustaches, shades. Leon played seated, and spent most of the beebling. Great guitar work, but each song was preceded by 2-3 minutes of him tuning the guitar, complaining about the strings not even lasting 6 months, asking people if they had perfect pitch, asking for requests (which he never played), dialog with the piano player (does the audience know that song? will they sing along? what key is this? do I know it?), taking swigs from a 'coffee cup,' and yelling out, "rise Lazaus." He'd preface each song with a story about the minstrel performer who wrote it. The piano player who accompanies him is outstanding, a couple of times he took over and did a solo song. Of the perhaps 7 songs Leon did, the only one I recognized was "Ain't Misbehaving." He sang about half, the others he whistled and once he played harmonica. He did "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" as an encore, and the audience sang along that time only.
My husband and I have been waiting to see Leon Redbone for some time. I saw him about 28 years ago in New Jersey but my husband had never. I bought the tickets as a Christmas present. Although we enjoy any outing we attend together, Leon seemed to be totally taken off guard by a guitar that needed to be tuned after every song. The piano player was wonderful and filled in the gaps. We wondered on the way home why no back up guitar. That was so distracting that it really took the enjoyment from the show.
He has lost his spark I found for what we paid to see him he could have sang more and stop with the tuning of his gutar
Leon Redbone whispered, whistled, growled, gargled, yodeled beyond the top of his range and finally sang in his deep deep penetrating voice. The lights were low, nearly dark so I closed my eyes to listen. He was jazz and blues, Tin Pan Alley, a minstel who changed pace like Django. He mumbled misquoted keys (people’s key of b-flat) and claimed authorship of songs written before he was born. He invited us to sing along on very obscure songs with no lyrics. It was an ample set inculding Ditty wah ditty, I aint got nobody, Marie, My Blue heaven, and Aint misbehaving. The encore was Shine On, Harvest Moon, to which we could sing along.
Leon Redbone is always a pleasure to hear. The Birchmere is a wonderful place to catch an act like this. Food was better than average and the wait staff were wonderful.
This was potentially the worst show that I've seen at the Birchmere. Mr. Redbone perpetually "tuned" his guitar and in thirty minutes was lucky to play three songs and one of those was a piano solo and not him.
Rambling between songs is part of Redbone's show but he spent most of his time on stage trying to tune his guitar. Played ten songs tops. Pretty sad.
I found I was greatly disappointed at the lack of professionalism in that Leon spent the majority of the concert tuning his guitar and applogizing for it. However, it all became old and VERY boring. Additionally, he seemed to be disconnected early in the show, drunk or stoned, but finally woke up about 1/2 hour before the end of the concert. I have been a big fan for a long time, I have seen him at 2 other times and he has performed professionally, but I came away from this concert very disappointed that I spent $40 a ticket for guitar tuning demonstration.
When Leon performs he is great...great voice and great sound. At each performance he seems to have a serious problem tuning his guitar strings. Seems like he could take care of this in advance or have a spare guitar at the ready. This situation was distracting and annoying. It did not add to the performance.
Came out did about 5 songs. Complained about guitar and left. The crowd was in a lynching mood.
As a musician, Leon Redbone is awesome. Making fluid and effortless work of his guitar parts and throwing in small flourishes such as turning his hand over the top of the fret board to hit accent notes and PRETENDING to get lost just to drop in again back into the song. The audience was strange as I can see from other reviews, his fans seem to have lost their sense of humor all over the country. He introduced "sing along" songs and the audience was silent. I sang along and got an elbow from the person next to me, my wife, because no one else was singing. Then Leon played off and said, "since that went so well, let's do another one." I laughed all over the place at his goofy jokes, whimsical approach to the guitar, and how he kept his humor with the weird vibe in the room. Prior to this I only saw his performances on the first season of SNL. If you would rather sit quietly and watch a motionless Leon Redbone wear sunglasses and play the album version of songs he recorded 30 years ago don't see him live. His performance is part performance art, part jazz concert, and yes he played Harvest Moon so everyone could sing along. I compare it to seeing Tom Waits. If you just want a musician to keep playing the stuff they played in 1976 you are sick. People change, especially jazz artists, and Leon Redbone is a great jazz guitar player. His piano player accompanying him was excellent too. Go and be entertained and yes, there might be an opening act. A previous reviewer couldn't believe that there was 45 minutes of something before the headliner came out. Who are these people?
I don't think I'll go to any more of these shows. I hate these promotional pre-shows for unknown artists. It's like going to groceries to buy milk with strings attached to it. So if you wanted to buy milk you have to buy also a box of some junk food which comes with it. Nobody told me when I bought my ticket that before seeing Leon Redbone I had to waste my time and money to listen to some local comedian I did not care for. I like Leon, his voice, his humor, informal atmosphere on his shows, and especially his original re-interpretation of that wonderful old American music that nobody cares for anymore. I live about 1 hour away from Mobile. After a long working day I had to rush to Mobile Saenger to see Leon. But they pushed to me to see somebody else instead for first 45 minutes. Then eventually came Leon Redbone. But I had lo leave early, at 9:45, because I still had to drive back home for another hour. And next morning go to work. Why they don't put these promotional pre-shows 1 hour earlier?! E.g. at 7 PM? Who cares for it he can came 1 hour earlier. But many people from audience have long drive home, plus have to work next day. They can't stay till 11 or 12 pm. Why do you waste their time pushing them some performance junk food they don't care for!?
I love Leon! His music and his styling and his voice - just phenomenal! But, I've never seen him live, and didn't know what to make of some of his menial banter. Was he drunk or just pretending to be drunk (remember Foster Brooks?)? He sang "Sweet Sue" at two different points during the show. When his fantastic piano man had a solo, Leon fluttered and flailed his hands around in a very distracting, disrespectful manner. And mumbled a good bit between songs, but I think that was part of his show. I'd love to see another live show, to get a genuine feel for his performance.
I have always admired Leon Redbone's talent, but this show was terrible. I kept waiting to see if it the whole thing was a joke, and he was just pretending to be that bad, but the show finally ended, and it never got better. Slurred words, off key and off beat music were just a couple of the problems. We could barely understand what he was saying the entire night, because he spoke quietly and mumbled. He sang 3 songs the whole evening and all the rest of the night was just him making mumbled jokes and acting like he was forgetting the words. It was embarassing and insulting that he let us pay money for the show, but didn't follow through and provide us with entertainment for our money. That showed a real lack of integrity and I won't admire him anymore after that evening.
