Wow! I never knew such a great sounding concert could be so…boring! This could’ve made a great live album, but there was no energy to be seen. Early show favorites like “Time Out Of Mind” were promising, but soon everything devolved into a light-jazz- soul stupor that left attention spans drifting and found the desire for something familiar to latch onto growing more with each song. Sure, we got a slinky “Babylon Sisters” and a bouncy “Peg,” but it wasn’t enough to make up for the sound-alike-but-not-as-good stuff that we had to wade through to get to ‘em. To top it off, after only playing for an hour, there was an intermission that lasted half that time.

The second set fared only slightly better than the first. “Hey Nineteen” was satisfying and led the crowd to get up and start moving, but a solid “When Josie Comes Home” wound up mired in a drum solo that felt like time killing, even though truth be told, the young drummer was the only one in the band that really seemed pumped up and into playing. “Kid Charlemagne” was the highlight of the night. At least that one really did live up to all expectations. Before leaving, Becker and Fagen threw a couple of more bones to the crowd for the encores of “My Old School” and “FM,” but it would’ve been nice if there had been some meat in the show.

Chris McKay / concertshots.com

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