Sheryl and Elvis at the Arch

Sheryl Crow
With Special Guest Elvis Costello
MLB All-Star Charity Concert
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (The Gateway Arch)
St. Louis, MO
Saturday, July 11, 2009
General Admission
free

I have an informal list of artists that I'd like to see live someday. I might not own any of their albums, but I like a number of their songs or know their reputations as live acts. If they come to town and it's convenient for me, I'll go. Sheryl Crow is not on this list.

That's because I've seen her twice already. I bought her debut album Tuesday Night Music Club when it was new and saw her on the tour for that album. Since then, I've heard a number of her songs, but I haven't kept up with her career. Then, a couple years ago, Roy and I saw her at the Crossroads Guitar Festival. I found out that she was doing a concert at the Arch grounds as part of the baseball All Star Game being held in St. Louis this week. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go, even though I enjoy her music.

Elvis Costello got added on to the show as a special guest. He is an artist on my list. He's gone through a lot of different styles, but I like a lot of his early singles and the level of integrity in his music. It's a free show on a Saturday night, and it became a must-see for me.

Everything about the day worked really well. It was raining heavily early in the day, but it cleared up in time for the concert. Even the grounds were dry. We took Metrolink downtown. Even with all the people in town for the All Star game, we still got seated immediately for dinner. We went to Burger Bar in the new casino downtown. We walked to the Arch afterwards and were able to get seats that were relatively close to the stage. It was humid, but not that hot out, and being so close to the river, we had a nice breeze.

Shows at the Arch are usually set up down by the Mississippi River, "Live on the Levee" style, where the steps leading up to the Arch form an amphitheater with tiered seating. For this show, the stage was on the same ground level as the Arch. We were encouraged to bring blankets or lawn chairs. Almost everyone stood for the entire concert, but the chairs helped space people out, so it wasn't too crowded. Of course, when everyone stood, I couldn't see the stage all that well, but I had a good view of one of the screens. The front center section was roped off with real chairs. We set up on the audience left, 15 or 20 rows back. Roy and I got there at 6:45 for the 8:00pm show. Lots of people came after us and the grounds filled up. The newspaper estimated the crowd as 45,000 to 50,000 people.

Roy looked at all the different age groups present, and wondered how many people were familiar with Sheryl Crow's music, compared to people looking for a free night's entertainment. It's got to be tough to know what crowd to appease, the people who want to hear songs they know or the fans. I saw Yes do a huge free show at the Taste of Chicago, where they did their regular setlist for that tour, full of long unfamiliar non-hit music. It was very brave and it seemed to go over well, but really, they probably didn't have anything else rehearsed. In other cases, I've seen bands play their hits and a lot of covers. Most people know most songs, and it also seems to go over well. This night had all of Sheryl Crow's hits, some covers, and a few songs I wasn't familiar with.

She opened the show right on time, doing the song A Change Will Do You Good. Sheryl grew up in Missouri and lived in St. Louis for a while. She brought this up a number of times, working the name of a local town into her lyrics, saying she went to the new casino while she was in town, and some other local things. Roy wasn't familiar with the opening song, and neither of us knew the next one. After that were a couple songs from her first album, Leaving Las Vegas and Strong Enough. When Strong Enough started, I pointed out to Roy that this was the song she and Allison Krauss dueted on at the Crossroads concert.

A half hour into the concert, Sheryl says that she's going to do a cover song from Cat Stevens. I can't see the actual stage, but the camera pans over, and we can see that Elvis Costello has come on stage. They sang The First Cut is the Deepest. This stretch of songs was among my favorite in the concert. The next one was Pump It Up. It had a lot of new wave energy and I bopped along to it. They played another of Sheryl Crow's songs together, and then What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding. I wondered beforehand if their sounds were all that compatible, but that backing band did a good job with both Costello's new wave and Crow's rootsy pop.

I wish they had continued trading off songs for longer, but Elvis left the stage at this point, not returning until the encore. Sheryl Crow did a bunch more well known songs, All I Wanna Do, Everyday is a Winding Road, and Soak Up the Sun, which was Roy's favorite of her songs. A couple times, she inserted a bit of a cover song into one of hers. I recognized I Can See Clearly Now. Roy told me another song was Sundown from Gordon Lightfoot.

Roy wasn't as familiar with Sheryl Crow as I was. He said afterwards that his impression of her changed. He thought she was going to be poppier, but discovered she had a range of styles. I think he liked it better than he thought he would. I liked most of her songs, except for the ones that drifted into hard rock territory, There Goes the Neighborhood and If It Makes You Happy. They just sound too generic to me. I remembered when I first saw Sheryl Crow back in 1995. I guess she was trying to build a rep as a serious musician then, playing guitar, but also keyboards and accordion. On this night, she stuck to playing backing guitar.

The people next to me were hilarious at first, and then annoying. One couple spent the whole first hour of the show calling people on their cell phone to say, "Guess what? We're at the Sheryl Crow concert! Can you hear it?" over and over again. I don't think they stopped to listen to the music at all during that time. Another woman in the group, after she got drunker, started dancing. I'm all for dancing at concerts, but this was bumping into people, making lots of noise, standing right in front of me when I'm trying to watch the screen and blocking my view dancing. When she moved away after a song, I darted in front of her dance floor so I could see again and try to block her out. Roy joined me.

The encore was a cover of Chuck Berry's Back in the USA. That seemed like the end of the show. Sheryl Crow and Elvis Costello left the stage. We wondered if there would be fireworks. Nothing started, so we began to pack our chairs.

The band came back on stage. I knew what the song would be just from the opening drum line. A cover of Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll! They did a great job with this, Sheryl Crow on vocals and Elvis Costello on lead guitar. I would not have pictured him as a Led Zeppelin fan. People rushed back to the concert area. It was the highlight of the night for both of us, an unexpected song and such a good performance of it. Afterwards, there was a nice fireworks display.

The night continued to be convenient for us. There's usually a long wait to get onto the Metrolink after events like this, and the train itself is packed. On this night, we got through the line quickly. As soon as we got to the platform, a train from our route arrived, and we got seats! It was a really enjoyable, easy evening.