Jesus 'N G-Love

I'd previously never heard of Kevin Kinney-but apparently the guy is no stranger to this event. Needless to say-I was not quite ready for neo-Christian musings delivered in Guthrie-esque fashion..but this is what we got with Kevin Kinney, and the whole room was better for it. His lone song, "My Jesus", was basicly a reminder that the famous handy-man from Galilee has more in common with long haired hippies, than he does with Bible-thumping moralists. While I've always believed this to be true as well-I had never seen it articulated in a concert setting. It was rather uplifting really-even if it did throw us for a loop.

The Consumate Professional

Playing with the Grateful Dead, achieving Top 40 success, and all points in between- Bruce Hornsby has always seemed to be the definition of a professional performer. Great music without a hint of pretension. I must admit that I really was hoping for a Dead tune, but it wasn't happening tonight. It was quite alright though. 'Long Valley Road' really through me for a loop as it was severely re-arranged. It really sounded nothing like the original, but the familiar lyrics came out of nowhere. The medley of 'Fortunate Son' to 'Comfortable Numb' was truly epic. Never really pegged Bruce as one to be able to capture the 'bigness' of that tune, but he sure did. When Jackson Browne came back on stage and tried to deny Bruce the fact that he wrote "End of the Innocence", Hornsby was a gentleman and took it in stride. As Bruce and the band eased into 'Cadillac's Rainbow' to close the set, I thought for sure that it was 'Franklin's Tower'-it totally sounded like the intro. Upon further review-it sounded much like the studio version of 'Cadillac's Rainbow'-so it wasn't a cruel tease...but it does suggest that Bruce may have done some borrowing when writing the song. Whatever the case-we were in no mood to quibble-just to get down, and the set closer wrapped up a very well executed set by the 'other' Chairman of the Boards.