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.
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