Jackson Browne’s Solo Acoustic tour will drive a nail in the coffin of his career

Jackson Browne, Moncton NB - bad vibe, bad room

I’m a Jackson Browne fan but even that couldn’t rescue a boring performance in Moncton last night.

Jackson Browne was very relaxed, so relaxed he forgot he was in New Brunswick and his set list.

The first set seemed like one long song but things picked up after the break.  By the end, I actually hoped he wouldn’t do an encore.

Overall it was a thrill to see him live but a disappointment that he performed with a lack of dynamics.  When people go out to a concert they expect to be entertained – make ’em laugh, make ’em cry or both.

Last week I wrote Bring on the pain one more time Jackson Browne on tour.

I was expecting a little pain, a tug on the old heart-strings. Nope. He just walked through some pretty sad material like it was just another song.

The only pain was my butt from the thinly padded seats at Casino NB.

I remember Jackson Browne playing great Southern Cal rock musicians in the 70s. He is after all the guy who wrote “Takin’ It Easy” with Glenn Fry of the Eagles. 
He is also a sensitive singer songwriter with lots of lonely lyrics. His 2000 tour with guitarist David Lindley was a classic.

The way to make sensitive music entertaining, other than a James Taylor bore-a-thon, is to have decent backing musicians who carry the music.

What we got last night was a 70s artist singing his old hits with solo guitar and keyboard. “This is just like me playing at home,” he said “except I can’t get up and make a cheese sandwich.”

Jackson Browne is a decent guitarist and those songs went along not too badly. Except he killed the beat in Take it Easy. I could not figure out how he did that.

He had the guitar mids and low-mids turned up on the 19 guitars he brought on stage, creating a drone. Each song merged with the last until it was hard to stay awake. I tried to focus on the guitar picking to keep my mind alert.

The keyboard songs were awful. He pounded the chords with fury on the heart-breakers and rockers.  The emotion of each song was banged down chord by chord.

Somehow, Jackson Browne stripped the music of its inner rhythm, the groove. The guy in front of me tried to rock his body to the music on Doctor My Eyes but soon lost the beat because Jackson Browne wasn’t keeping the groove himself.

His old fans no doubt went home somewhat pleased or bewildered.

Casino NB strictly bush league

Casino NB, despite the millions spent on it, is the worst venue in Atlantic Canada for music.

The 2,000 seat room is on par with your high school auditorium. It’s a general purpose room with the stage on the long side of the rectangle. Temporary and thinly padded chairs form a semi-circle along the flat floor.

Yes flat. No theater seating so everyone is moving left and right to see past the heads of the people in front.  I can name five venues on PEI which are better suited to a music performance.

The video screens should have provided relief. The are mounted to the far right and left of the stage. To see them you had to a big head turn, at which point you don’t have any visually connection with the stage. That set-up must be great for sales conferences but it was dismal for music.

The building is not wheelchair or disability accessible. Simple things like door openers in the bathrooms are missing. It was probably built with political patronage contracts wasting taxpayers dollars.

The staff was poorly trained. One usher tried to push my wheelchair as if I was in a nursing home. How did he figure I got from the parking lot?

Other than fawning and smiling, they had no idea how to treat someone in a wheelchair. There was no wheelchair seating. More patronage jobs I guess.

Some people were taking pictures. When I tried to get a shot for this story an usher swooped in from the back. “Someone is taking pictures here!”

“Yeah, that was me taking a picture of my hand.”

PEI and Halifax have no worries about Casino NB becoming a mega entertainment center.