Crossroads

I was surprised to hear that Tracy Chapman still tours, so when she scheduled a show at The Fillmore, I jumped all over it. The show, which was last Sunday night, sold out pretty quickly, which I also did not expect. Turns out she’s from the Bay Area, so I guess it makes sense.

There was no announced opening act, but a few days before the show, it was announced that Ben Taylor was going to warm up the crowd. Ben is a spitting image of his father – both voice, looks and demeanor. I had been tracking his whereabouts for a few years in hopes of a Bay Area performance, but all I got was a county fair somewhere south of SF. Uhh, no. The only other appearance I’ve seen of his was a recent TV gig he did prior to the US Open finals last month. He sang America The Beautiful with his Dad. Powerful stuff. Anyhow, his Fillmore set was awesome, but ended up being a huge tease. He played 5 acoustic songs which were funny, emotional, honest and simple. The crowd was mesmerized … you could hear a pin drop in the theater. Way more fans came early for Ben Taylor than I imagined. It’s nice to know that he’s got a solid/growing little following 3,000 miles away from his roots.

Tracy Chapman came out about an hour later. Her set was pretty much what I expected. Mellow singer songwriter stuff with a few up-tempo tunes thrown in so the crowd didn’t go home wanting to kill themselves. She played a good sampling of her body of work that pleased all contingents, I’m sure – from Talking About A Revolution to This Time to her new release, Change. (btw, I can’t listen to her album Crossroads without it reminding me of my trip to Vietnam in 2004. A hotel I was staying at played that CD incessantly while I was hiding out from the angry remnants of a typhoon. It’s still one of if not my favorite Tracy Chapman album) Not only was the size of the crowd surprising, but the make-up was, too. I’m not great at estimating crowd sizes, but I’d say at least 60% of the crowd was gay, if not more. When I mentioned that fact to a friend the next day, they looked at me like I was stoopid. Am I the only one that didn’t know that Tracy Chapman is gay? The rest of the crowd was pretty much couples. Nothing better than watching couples make out to Tracy Chapman tunes. Good times. At any rate, Chapman has aged really well and has some pretty features. She is endearingly shy and a little geeky, but still managed to banter and connect with her adoring crowd. I'm drawing a blank right now, but she did some really cool covers including 2 Dylan tunes and one that Ben Taylor joined her to perform.

Next show is Jamiroquai in early-November.