In the age of arena-pop shock and awe, Steely Dan and Steve Winwood took a far more cerebral approach Wednesday night at American Airlines Center.
There were no video screens, no light show, no special effects and no dancing, aside from the occasional shimmy and shake from Steely Dan's three female backing singers. Instead, the two acts relied solely on chops, improvisation and nostalgia for a concert devoted to "music pretty much of a vintage nature," as Winwood put it.
Talk about an understatement. Almost none of the songs on the set-list were written after the invention of the compact disc.
Steely Dan ignored its two postmillennial albums and focused entirely on material from the '70s and 1980's Gaucho. Winwood did play one tune from 2008, but his most recent hit was 1986's "Higher Love."
Yet the retro approach worked, as both acts found subtle new ways to re-energize their back catalogs.
Steely Dan headlined the show, doling out one hit after another for nearly two hours for a receptive, seated crowd that filled most of the AAC's lower bowl (the nosebleed sections were curtained off). Singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen, 68, stumbled every now and then at the mike, stretching the syllables to awkward lengths in "Rikki Don't Lose that Number." But his voice was considerably stronger than it was three years ago at Verizon Theatre.
Then again, a Steely Dan show isn't so much about the singing as it is about the playing. Co-leader Walter Becker hyped the 11-piece backing band as "finer than the hair on a frog," and it was no lie. Steely Dan sounded like the reigning king of big-band jazz-rock - kind of like Chicago, but with wilder solos and skeezier lyrics.
Jon Herington, Steely Dan's second lead guitarist since 2000, led the charge with clean, wiry solos in "Peg" and "Bodhisvattva" that contrasted perfectly with Becker's looser guitar solos. Drummer Keith Carlock, a UNT alum, wove intricate rhythms and exploded during a solo in "Aja." And the four-man horn section swung with the bravado and precision of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
"Hey Nineteen," with its ill-fitting trombone solo, was a bit too loose. But that was the exception. From the set-opening "Black Cow" to a blistering "My Old School," Steely Dan made the old school sound fresh more than three decades after the fact.
Winwood has become a familiar opening act at the AAC, having occupied that role at shows by Eric Clapton and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. On Wednesday, he packed a ton of rock history into his hour-long set, tweaking the arrangements to his Blind Faith hymn "Can't Find My Way Home," his solo hit "Higher Love" and a rousing set-ending "Gimme Some Lovin'," which he wrote and recorded at 18 for the Spencer Davis Group.
A half-century later, Winwood is still in fine voice, his soulful, sandpaper tenor untouched by the hands of time. He's always been a masterful keyboardist, too, as he showed with wild improvisation on the Hammond B-3 organ during the Spencer Davis hit "I'm a Man.
And lest anyone forget his triple-threat talents, he uncorked two of rock's most famous electric guitar solos in the middle of "Dear Mr. Fantasy."
Winwood probably couldn't pass an audition for 'Dancing with the Stars,' but give the guy an instrument and he's unstoppable.
Thor Christensen is a Dallas writer and critic. Thorchris2@yahoo.com
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