In yesterday's post I described how we were suddenly in the midst of a run of shows (and sickness), and not to be overlooked in this was the fact that Hot Tuna were going to be playing the Wilbur again! Their last time there they'd played electric, which I love, but this time they announced that they'd be acoustic and that's pretty good too. :)
Again, we weren't on top of our game. There was also something going on in the theater district that night and all restaurants around there were booked up. But we headed in to the nearby garage on Charles so we wouldn't have far to walk and were able to get a table at Rock Bottom on Stuart, though we had to wait a bit.
There were kids all over the place and we finally figured it out. "Elf the Musical" had just opened in Boston and that was the huge event in the area that night. The Color Purple was also being staged that night at the Schubert, and Dave's roommate (and her cousin) were going to that.
Oh well, we got across Tremont in the swirl of people and were waved into the Wilbur with other Hot Tuna enthusiasts ... this was the real stuff. F&P (recently back from Nepal!) also attended and had managed to snag seats just behind us, in the second and third rows of the mezzanine, right on the left row of the center section, fantastic seats!
After a small beer and much talk about Nepal and events at 18,000 feet, the guys came out and there they were: Jack and Jorma. I believe this was sold out, I saw no empty seats, and several people in the audience were hooting and hollering and yelling out "Fucking HOT TUNA!!!" all night long.
Spectacle-less Jack was sitting in the kind of chair you might find in the office, a swivel black-mesh chair with a broad back and casters. But he was perched on the edge of it, rather than sitting back, holding an acoustic bass that was almost as big as he was. This six-string bass was huge and had a sound hole at top right, with a little mike snapped on above it to relay to his amp setup on stage. Jorma was in a low chair as usual, leaned over his gut-string guitar like he did NOT want it to escape his bear hug. His chair was triangular, two legs in back and one in front. His steel string was in a stand next to him, but we knew he wasn't going to pick up that one until the time was right.
Sorry that I can't remember everything they played. They concentrated on Jorma's more folky compositions and played them excellently. They're such a perfect pairing, they've been playing together for over 55 years, and their sounds flow seamlessly into each other. It almost didn't matter what they were playing, they could be playing anything and you'd still hear that magic of one instrument being played by two people on different sets of strings, sitting in separate chairs.
Here are a few songs they played which got big reactions: Serpent of Dreams, Sea Child, Come Back Baby, 99 Year Blues, Barbecue King, How Long Blues, San Francisco Bay Blues, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, etc. They took a break somewhere in there, but not a long one.
Then finally, the time was right. Jorma put down his gut string and picked up his steel string and we knew we were nearing the end of the night and what they were going to close with. It's hard to choose between Jorma's finest songs, some of his compositions are just head and shoulders over everything else, such as Sea Child, which they'd done second(?). But two others are what he seems to close with every time we've seen him recently, and are played on the ringing steel strings: Bar Room Crystal Ball and Water Song.
Even the leather-lungs in the balcony were silenced by Bar Room Crystal Ball, which is such a signature song of Jorma's, touching on life, addiction, and meaning in the subtle ways his best songs do. And of course hearing Hot Tuna play Water Song live is almost like hearing the Sermon On the Mount ... well maybe not really, but that's what we were all there for and besides the sound of the two guitars on stage you could have heard a pin drop. I can't say Jack's bass made the theater echo, but instead it filled it perfectly. This was excellent stuff, and I can't wait to hear those two play it again.
This time Jorma didn't even get out of his chair for the encore break, and Jack didn't either; he just grinned like the Cheshire Cat, beaming his smile throughout the audience. It was clear this was the end though and Jorma finally said well, we'll do one more for an encore. And then he lit into Embryonic Journey. This is another of his top-shelf songs and I don't think I'd ever heard him play this before, though he first recorded it with the Airplane in the sixties. This topped off the night like you wouldn't believe!
Two old guys stood up and smiled, then waved and left the stage. Geez, we'd just heard some of the best music that's ever existed (in my world at least) played by two masters. How could you beat that?
We were all very worn out by that point, not only us sickies but also trekkers F&P. Luckily, we had all parked pretty close and when we got out to the street the other events were not letting out so we had smooth walks back to our cars. Dave picked up the pack he had stashed at the car and then went to meet his roommate after The Color Purple. Sarah and I drove slowly out of the garage and then down Charles, onto Storrow, under the still sparking pedestrian bridge, and back North. Not to bed that late!
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