Bad Night, Good Night -- Thomas Dolby in Concert @ Birchmere

[billbaker]

People who've read my posts might have noticed my admiration for Thomas Dolby -- a guy I've seen in concert half a dozen times and twice this year.

I saw him in DC with a little known opening act called The Police, and a few years later with Flock of Seagulls on the bill. A couple of years ago I saw his one-man Sole Inhabitant tour with B.T. as the headliner (a sharply divided crowd that) in Baltimore.

And I saw him tonite (Sunday 28 Oct) at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA.

If you only know 'Blinded by Science' you should do yourself a favor and pick up a greatest hits or his 'Sole Inhabitant' CD (which amounts to the same thing) and give a listen.

Musician's of a certain age get pegged with their first hit, but it's as unfair in this case as it would be to say Billy Joel was the "Piano Man" guy or Elton was the "Your Song" guy. In either of those examples the song, though it was a hit, was not their last-best-masterpiece or even a representative indication of the scope of their work to come.

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First, let me say that there was a tsunami of crap conspiring to make this NOT happen. Hurricane Sandy is about to crush the East Coast. The airlines have cancelled everything - including Dolby and his band's flight home. People are, for inexplicable reasons, hoarding bread and toilet paper, stealing their children's flashlights, charging their iPads and huddling in fear... at home... doors locked. I was almost one of them.

I got to the Birchmere, a 1000 seat venue at about 6:00 for the 7:30 show. I was ticket 42 (life, the universe, and everything). There were, at a stretch, 150-200 people at the show. Die hard fans. First timers (a ten year old who "knew all his songs"). And me. Thank God.

Fate worked it's Karmic flip-floppery on horrible until it was, for once, wonderful.

I was 6 feet from Thomas Dolby all night long.

He played "every song we know and a couple we don't" -- things I'd never heard from him live, and some of my personal favorites like 'Field Work', his duo effort with Ryuichi Sakomoto, and the haunting 'Screen Kiss' and the Cajun flavored 'Silk Pajamas'.

As much as I enjoy Korg Forum's tech-talk and parsing the manuals for information and advising newbies, I am a musician - a maker of music - first.

And I got to see a wonderful artist hard at work triumphing over jet-lag and exhaustion and stubborn computers and a severely underwhelming turn out. I saw him sharing the stage and the credit with his band, who's good spirits and humor helped him work past his fatigue and vocal strain to deliver what I must say was, WOW, a truly memorable show.

And I say that because I've been in that same situation - playing as hard as I can for a handful of people. I sincerely admire the professionalism (yeah, that's another thread, but this is another aspect of pro) and the love (for lack of a better word) that it took to give even more to the few that came than you might have to a full house.

So even if it was a really bad night for you, and I suspect it was, thank you Thomas Dolby.


BB