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Concert Review: Dan Bern, Stew

Stew (who is also in a band called The Negro Problem) opened the show. I had never heard of Stew, but it turned out to be a guitar-playing singer/songwriter playing with a woman who played bass, keyboards, and did a little back-up singing. His first song was enough to win me over - it was about Ken's bitterness with the world because Mattel won't allow him to reveal that he is gay and kids always force him to make out with Barbie. He was good at telling little stories in the middle of his songs, which made it a really entertaining performance. A few of his seemingly more serious songs didn't seem very interesting, especially since all of the guitar parts in all of his songs seemed pretty simple, but overall it was a great set for an opening band. Things were off to a great start!

Dan Bern then came on. I had listened to a couple of CDs so I was familiar with his sound but didn't really know any of his songs. He played a few things and stopped in the middle of a couple of songs, which seemed kind of strange. Then he went on a really long rant about Barry Bonds, in some kind of preacher-style voice, which was entertaining but went on for too long. The crowd then seemed a little divided - some people yelled for him to "play more songs" or "play an entire song" after he stopped something in the middle again. I thought it was kind of annoying when he stopped in the middle of things, but it was still entertaining to watch. I had never really appreciated having someone sing a complete song in a concert before. He definitely seemed a little "off" with all the rants - a little too much Heineken before the show? or something else? The interaction with the crowd was also interesting to watch, because he went into a rant similar to the classic "I'm an artist, not a jukebox" (he wouldn't play the tiger woods song, although he did take some other requests) but he also went on rants about why he didn't want people sitting down at the show so he had them take away a bunch of the chairs they were going to have. Then he announced he was going to play one more song, but went into a string of about maybe 6 songs (which he played all the way through, I think) before the show ended. I was confused because it seemed like there was no encore, instead the house lights went up and we got the announcement that it was last call. Strange.

We made it back to the car, where we got into a heated discussion about the show. 2 of the people in the group were upset at Dan, saying he acted like an ass to the audience and they were upset about him not playing the songs all the way through. It made me wish I had kept track of how many songs he did that too - it didn't really seem like that many to me, but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. 3 of us thought the show was enjoyable. I liked it, maybe not only for the music but also for the unusual interaction. I feel like he wasn't being much of an asshole to the audience, and that it was mostly directed at the people in the crowd yelling at him. Maybe he did alienate the sitters, but every artist makes that decision, they probably just don't talk about it on stage - and he did let them keep the tables and chairs in the back third of the room, which is more than they have had at any of the other shows I have seen there. As for the stopped-songs, I guess it didn't bother me that much. Maybe if I had been familiar with the songs more it would have been troubling, but he kept going with a story or a rant or another song, so it didn't seem so bad to me. I felt like I was sharing a unique concert experience, which was nice, even if it did involve some drunken rambling or aborted songs. He also played some songs that I thought were really good and engaging. And it put me back into a show-going mood, which I hadn't really been in since Noisepop. So I thought it was a good evening of entertainment.