A rock star as big as former the Band drummer Levon Helm? If he helms a crap concert I’m gonna nail him big time, and nearly two years after seeing Levon perform a pretty good set also at the Beacon Theatre, Helm lead a lousy set at the Beacon Friday night.
In March 2009, he played a healthy handful of his own songs off a blooming solo career, a clutch of wild covers, brought out Donald Fagen and Phoebe Snow who sang “Save The Last Dance For Me”.Helm controlled the band from his drum kit and lead the hootenanny through some awesome twists and turns.
And like all these things, there was a bit too much setting shit up and some of it dragged bad. But it all paid off in the end. A good set and since I was between concerts this thanksgiving weekend, I decided to go and catch him again. This despite a preposterous nosebleed charge of $60 a tix. The overpriced venue was half empty.
And the set, sorta leaning on New Orleans ragtime by a buncha people I’ve never heard of plus Levon and Steve Earle, was like wandering into a wedding reception where you only know a friend of the groom. Uncomfortable while everyone else is having a blast. It was somewhere between cover band and serious shit and it seemed to be settling into cover band. At sixty bucks it was ridiculously pricey for the set provided.
So why not just say that and get on with my life? Because the few times Levon Helm spoke last night it was obvious why he was leaving his solo material alone: he had no voice to speak of. Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in the late 90s and these things take their toll. One bad set does not make an anything less than legendary career anything less than legendary. If all Helm did was play drums on Dylan’s Before The Flood tour in 1974 he’d be a great in my books.
I’ll forgive him for this one and wish him a speedy recovery.