As part of a birthday celebration, We went to a James Taylor concert at the Maverik Center last night. I was astonished. It was the best concert experience I have ever had, including the best music, the best interaction between the performers in the audience, the best audio visual setup, you name it.
My expectations were a little bit tempered at first because I had never been to the Maverik Center and it did not strike me as a first-class venue. And then things got underway and everything changed. The opening act was Jackson Browne. (Yes, this was a boomer-oriented event, but there were younger people there too.) The place was packed.
Jackson was great, sang a few new songs, played most of his big hits. He opened with “She’s Got to Be Somebody’s Baby” as kind of a nostalgic sweetener for the show. Fun.
JT came out at one point and did a couple of duets with Browne. and one song James stepped back and was just a back up singer for Jackson. I kind of expected all that but it was a treat.
I don’t have enough superlatives to describe the rest of the show. I’m a huge James Taylor fan and have everything he’s ever done. I’ve seen him in concert six or seven times. I’ve never seen him perform this way, however. He seem to be having great fun and interacted with the audience throughout the show (something I’ve also never seen him do–he’s always seemed kind of shy in concert except when he’s singing).
The audio visual part of the show was cutting edge, and like nothing I’ve ever seen, especially in one of his shows. It did not distract from the performance at all, but enhanced it.
One highlight was that Jackson Browne came out again and the whole company performed a full blown rendition of “Running On Empty” complete with a beautiful video background.
Anyway, I could go on and on, and there’s just too much to say to include it all here. He did two encores (Jackson Browne came out again for the encores) and concluded with “Shed A Little Light,” pretty much as a coral number. Very inspiring. Then as all the players were gathering themselves and preparing to leave the stage for the last time, he started running around to each of them and whispering in their ears about something more he wanted to do. They then regrouped and did a beautiful, tender performance of “You’ve Got A Friend.” Then the players started to leave again, but JT really seemed reluctant to leave the stage. That’s also something I’ve never seen from him. As the lights were going down on stage, I saw him hold up one finger, as if to say “Hold on a moment,” and he went up and spoke to his son Henry Taylor, who is one of his backup singers. All the other performers left, and he and Henry did another beautiful acoustic rendition of “You Can Close Your Eyes,” a well-known lullaby that was on his 1971 Mud Slide Slim album.
Then the show finally ended. The arena was just full of emotion and happy people.
For anyone who is a James Taylor fan, this concert was the one to top all JT concerts.
