And If It Rains... Hold Your Head Up

So last night I went to see Ringo Starr and his All Star band and all I have to say is what a shock! In my last post I wrote about what band surprised me the most with their excellent show and this one is right up there. These old men can still play, they may have lost a bit from their voices but their talent with their instruments has not faded one bit.

The lineup is as follows:

Ringo Starr - Drums, Tambourine
Sheila E - Drums
Rod Argent - Keyboards
Richard Marx - Guitar
Billy Squier - Guitar
Hamish Stuart - Bass
Edgar Winter - Keyboards, Saxophone, Drums

Now as I said the talent these members possessed completely shocked me, now I knew that they were a talented group of individuals but I figured with age they would have lost a step or two. I saw the show in the PNC Bank Arts Center in NJ, my seats were General Admission which is all the way in the back of the venue. With this venue the front half is covered by a ceiling and the back side which is General Admission is completely outdoors. When the show began it was beautiful outside, earlier in the day it was about 100 degrees and Ringo cracked a few jokes asking where the heat was. As the night progressed the wind grew stronger and the air became a bit more brisk, and probably an hour into the set a torrential downpour began. Luckily for my friend Ryan and I we were able to sneak down into the seating area where we were covered by the ceiling, the security guards there were really easy going and let everyone from the General Admission down into the seats since it wasn't too crowded but those who didn't get under in time were completely soaked. What made this rain even worse was that it was so incredibly windy that it was even felt in the seated area.

Now a bit about the show, they had a pretty lengthy set which lasted about two and a half hours, I was extremely pleased by the length of the show not only can these old men (and a woman) play well but they can play for a long time. The highlight of the night was a little more than halfway through the set where Edgar Winter pulled out "Frankenstein", he did an amazing job with the song and it turned out to be a great ten minute jam session where he played three instruments, interchanging between the keyboard, drums, and sax. At one point of the song he had a little dueling drums session with the incredible Sheila E., and might I add she was looking pretty good tonight. Another great moment in the night was when Rod Argent played "Hold Your Head Up". He played extremely well on the organ with some very impressive solos, his voice sounded great, and during the instrumental section he even found the time to get up and run around the stage asking for everyone to get up and scream "Hold Your Head Up", the fans ate it up and joined right along. The most talented member on the stage must have been Billy Squier, his soloing was fantastic and I feel people often forget how great of a guitarist he truly is. The rest of the band was great as well and Ringo provided us with some nice comic relief as he always does and it turned out to be a really fun night. I definitely think I will be going to see Ringo and his All Star band more often.