Corea/Clarke/DiMeola/White
Fox Theatre
St. Louis, MO
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Orchestra Pit Section 3, Row 2, Seat 113
$74.50
Drummer Lenny White thanked the audience for supporting instrumental music. "In the era of boy bands", he said, "we are a man band". If boy bands are the epitome of style over substance, Return to Forever's set was the alternative: with all the talent on stage, I was more taken aback by the melodic strength and how well they played together than flashy solos. Substance, but with a lot of style too.
Roy was so excited to hear that Return to Forever was ... returning. This was their most famous lineup reuniting, all musicians who have become legends over the years. Chick Corea, Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White. They hadn't played together since the mid 1970s. Roy never had a chance to see them back then, but he'd seen Corea, DiMeola, and Clarke separately. I'm sure we would have traveled somewhere to see this tour, but they came to St. Louis. Even played one of the nicest venues, the Fox Theater. Jazz fusion can get a bad rep, but that's for the noodly stuff. This is the good stuff. I was only familiar with the Romantic Warrior album, but we were both expecting to be blown away by this show.
Roy wanted to sit up close for this show. We decided not to do their ticket package that came with a guaranteed good seat, but we lucked out and got tickets in the 2nd row in the orchestra pit. On the day of the show, we went out to dinner at Vito's. It was nice enough outside that we walked around the Saint Louis University campus and the Grand Center district before the show. We got to the Fox around 7:30.
I never noticed the Fox security to be strict before, but they needed to see both of our tickets every time we entered the orchestra pit area. The seats were really good, maybe even better than the front row would have been. The stage was about 3 feet high and there were audio monitors right in front of us. I think it blocked part of the view for the people in front of us, but we were far enough back that it was fine for us. We were on the audience left side, directly in front of Al DiMeola. Roy loved this view - at our angle, he could see the entire band at once. The seats themselves were nice for removable seats, comfy and wide. Lots of leg room too. The guy next to me noticed my Yes tshirt and we chatted about music for awhile. The show was not sold out; there were large areas of empty seats along the sides in both the back of the orchestra section and in the balcony.
The lights dimmed and the band came out on stage. I've seen so many different ways of bands starting a show. Yes will come on stage while Firebird Suite is playing and play along with it before going into the first song of their set. Sometimes the stage will be dark as a band gets positioned, and then bam, the lights go up and they're playing. Return to Forever took a much lower key approach. They all walked to the front of the stage and greeted the audience. We gave them a standing ovation to thank them for coming and for the potential of the show. They earned it. Chick Corea took the microphone and welcomed us. He told us to relax and enjoy the show, or not relax if that's what we wanted.
They opened with a quiet piece that never really gelled for me. After that, the first set was heavenly. The main speakers were way above our heads, to provide sound to the whole theater. There were monitors on stage, which can provide a funny mix. We sometimes sacrifice sound quality for a good view at concerts. Not that night. The sound was perfect. I didn't even need to wear my earplugs. Everything was clear, no distortions, perfect volume, good timbres from the instruments. What a pleasure to listen to this band. I don't know their material well enough to name song titles, but my favorite part was a call and response type of duet from Corea and DiMeola. My general rule at concerts is not to applaud over music, wait til the song is over and the band stops playing. But there were so many good parts I wanted to acknowledge. I cheered at the end of the call and response bit and wished I could have given it a proper standing ovation. There was no front man in the band. During the first set, both Stanley Clarke and Lenny White took the microphone to address the audience. Both mentioned how beautiful the theater was and how happy they were to play as a band again and to play for us. The whole band looked like they were enjoying themselves.
Sadly, I was getting a little tired. It had been a long day at work, and as nice as the concert was, it wasn't the type to pump me full of adrenaline and energize me. I asked Roy to buy me a Coke during the intermission, and he suggested I get up and walk around a bit. On my way to the lobby, another person stopped me to comment on the Yes tshirt. This guy had listened to Relayer on the way to the show. There was a long wait at the concession stand. I studied the audience. Just as few women as I was expecting. Maybe 15-20% of the audience. More young people than I figured would be there, but still not a huge percentage. Roy saw a young girl who was there with her parents and told me I wasn't the youngest woman in the audience. The audience was a whole lot more racially mixed than at other concerts I go to. I don't think this band sounds that different from progressive rock, but they are tapping into a whole different demographic. Roy pointed out that this might be because the band is 50/50.
There had been a bit of heckling during the show. A drunk woman behind us was calling out all the band members' names as they were talking to the audience. I yelled out something at this point, but I think it was appropriate. After the intermission, Chick Corea talked to the audience again, and was mentioning the jazz documentary done a few years back. He couldn't remember what it was called and even walked over to some of his bandmates to ask them. I yelled out "Ken Burns' Jazz", and I heard other people yell it after me. He must have heard one of us. His point was that the documentary covered up to the first half of the 1900s and maybe there would be a follow-up to cover the modern era. He dedicated the next part of their set to Miles Davis, who he had played with and was from the St. Louis area. (It's sad to think that Miles Davis has a star on the St. Louis walk of fame that used to be at the entrance to Streetside Records. Now it's by a Noodles and Company.)
Our seats got even better during the second half. The two guys in front of us got tired of their half-blocked view and asked the usher if they could sit off to the side, without the monitors in the way. When the band came back on, Al DiMeola sat down. The people in front would have blocked my view of this, but we were completely unobstructed now. For this part of the show, we had the best seats in the house.
DiMeola played a solo guitar piece on acoustic guitar. The whole second set was more jazzy and more acoustic than the first half. Stanley Clarke played an upright bass and Corea played more piano. The next piece was really beautiful and Roy and I gave it a standing ovation. Corea played not just the keys of the piano, but also plucked and hammered the strings. It all worked for the music.
The only missteps for me were the solos towards the end. I know Stanley Clarke is one of the best bass players ever. He did his solo on the upright bass and it was impressive and he got great sounds out of the instrument. But I felt it went on too long and didn't really build in intensity or flow. I would have liked it a lot better had it been half as long. And I've never been a big fan of drum solos.
After the solos, the band played another song and then came to the front of the stage to say their goodbyes. The band members started shaking hands with fans. I moved up front and got to shake Stanley Clarke's hand. They said they had one more song. I would have stayed up front if everyone had remained standing, but I'd rather sit back at my seat with a better viewing angle. Some people from further back took the empty seats in front of us. Towards the end, Corea gestured for us to stand. I moved up to the stage again. After the show, I got to shake hands with Al and with Stanley again. The guy standing next to me got Al's guitar pick.
The guy sitting next to Roy had come by himself. We talked to him for a little bit as the crowds were thinning out. He's just like us with concerts and festivals, but focusing on jazz rather than prog. Roy explained to him what kind of music we like, and he asked if we saw Genesis on their last tour. They didn't come to St. Louis. He seemed impressed when I said we saw them in Montreal. On our way out, some lady stopped us and it turned out that she was friends with Roy's brother Mark. She recognized us and even remembered our names, but I don't remember when I ever met her. I'm always surprised when I see people from real life at one of these shows. They all thought that Mark would have enjoyed this one.
We saw the bus outside the Fox and some people were waiting to try to meet the band. It was way too late for us. But sitting so close and seeing their reactions to the music, I feel like I got to see some of the personalities anyway. It was a wonderful performance.
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