Half way through the second encore, The Mavericks reached the apotheosis of the evening and of their career: in 2015, with their second album since they reformed just released (by Big Machine Records, no less) on Tuesday, they stepped back just two years for “Come Unto Me” and leader and lead singer Raul Malo took his band to a place where Latin American rhythms and guitars met rockabilly but only as an ingredient of the song. It had the sax and trumpet like an unconscious echo of the ghost of Tito Puentes, Raul’s accented (which it isn’t always) vocal and lead guitarist Eddie Perez’s samba in place electric guitar, immersing the song in Tex-Mex, plus a terrific solo and the hook is all “yi-yi-yis” as the band explodes in one mini jam after another, it is but it isn’t all form. It exists precisely in the place south of the border, down Mexico way, where some young girl is whispering Manaya in a Gringos ear. It is a little akin (though not the sound) to what Santana did once but without the hyphen it isn’t Tex-Mex quite, you can’t quite see the stitches, though removing the Latin American flavor would ruin it, like taking a spice out of a recipe. Raul, who has a glorious, and protean (quite capable of most forms of rock), voice is forceful and also a little diffident as he commands the woman he is singing to (the Mavericks sing love songs) and the band swings so hard the song should’ve been longer, the groove could have gone on, it wasn’t over yet. If there was a problem Friday night at a sold out Town House, it is the Mavericks would have been better off performing 20 instead of 28 songs and luxuriating in the sounds they set up, riding the groove for stretches and stretches and stretches.
On this, the opening night of their world tour (they’d played a warm up date in Boston a coupla days earlier), the Mavericks might be working it out a little, though the setlist seems set in stone already. The tour is a long one, 16 dates in April (half in Europe), 15 dates in May, and more through July 31st. I would bet the rest of the summer is still in the planning stage. But this is opening day at Yankee Stadium, the team on the field is the team you’re gonna get, though we will see who plays well: a tight 150 minutes, heavy on the past two years but with time for oldies but goldies.
The Mavericks are a Miami based band (and Pitbull is a Malo wannabe) who began their career in the punk clubs and moved on through mainstream country, rockabilly and Tex Mex songs. Though Raul is the only original member, they’ve been around since 1989 with a ten year break and a reunion in 2012. Signed to Taylor Swift’s label, they have a big time contact and have released two solid albums in three years, last year the Mavericks celebrated their 25th anniversary.
This early on the tour, the rust shows a little, and while it is a sustainably good set, it isn’t consistently great. Consider that a graded on a curve judgement: starting with two songs of recent vintage, the band is right on the button more often than not: the country “Foolish Heart” could teach the young whippersnappers of country a thing or ten, “Out The Door” followed it, a wonderful rockabilly shuffle with three part harmonies. This is all good stuff, it is, by definition, a rockabilly with a touch of Spanish. Raul Malo, 50 years of age this year, is of Cuban American heritage and he maintains a sense of his culture, it simmers in the background of the band songs and he is also from Miami, so a heartbeat away from the South, and there is that as well. More Fiesta than Siesta, he leads a full band, with sax, trumpet, accordion, and with him on the front line, Eddie Perez who is a great guitarist and keyboardist and eldest other band member, the perfect visual foil for everything that is happening Jerry Dale McFadden. Though even if the band were half as good, Raul’s extremely capable singing would make them worth watching; , he has a gorgeous voice and he sounds good on everything from 50s MOR to country waltzes, he can be operatic in his intensity and mainstream in his rock.
However, the show doesn’t really hit its stride till a suspenseful and powerful Malo solo song from 2010 “Sinners And Saints” brings the house down. It is the first time all night when the Mavericks show what they can really do. It is one of of the several times, the Mavericks go to town, and, yet again, it starts with the horn section, not permanent members, they are given a full head of steam and when they are loosened on us the songs ignite. The first song before the encore, “Loving Tonight” starts with a “Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down” sample and lets loose in a doo wop frenzy of sound with everybody taking a shot at the limelight, and the penultimate song of the evening “All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down”, which followed “Come Unto Me” and beat it found Jerry picking up a bullhorn and miming the horns just like the album cover of Mono.
If the band only took it to the stratosphere four times they do have more than one sound, more than one way they want to thrill you. They are comfortable with a pre-rockish “Pardon Me” or a blues fuse “The Only Question” and are complete excellent on both. They steal from the Silhouettes on one song, Merle Haggard on another. Raul’s solo on “Mona Lisa” and “Around The World in 80 Days” has him heading for the Rat Pack -or maybe Perry Como, and the Mavericks without their leader for the first time ever on the disappointing instrumental “Soulful Strut” (Jerry is a great foil with Raul, alone he didn’t capture the moment) is a work in progress. They are, while remaining within the strict definition of genre, all over the place.
But when they bring everything to a boil they are better, the Mavericks emerge as the best at what they did. Saturday night the Mavericks were always at least good and sometimes they were great. Three years since they reformed, the band are a force and that’s for sure. Their new album isn’t quite as good as In Time, but it doesn’t miss by much, and Mono refers to “Mono Mundo” (one world), the name of this tour because, yes, it is one world and it belongs to the Mavericks.
Grade: B+
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