Jackson Browne In Concert 03/28/2011

Last night my buddy Buzzard and I saw 62 year old California musician Jackson Browne in concert at The Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton on his Acoustic Solo Tour, play to an almost sold out crowd. This was my first time seeing Jackson Browne in concert. My buddy Buzzard got me into Jackson Browne's music years ago through such albums as Running On Empty, The Pretender and his debut album.

The first thing I noticed at the show was how old the crowd was, this was definitely an old hippies audience, lots of grey hair and bald or balding heads.

You sure couldn't say that about Jackson Browne though, when he came out on stage, I was surprised by how good he looks for someone that is 62 years old, he looks no different then he did in the 70's.



This show was just Jackson on guitar and piano (17 guitars behind him), hence the name of the tour (Solo Acoustic). While I don't know a lot of his songs, I did recognize songs like Late For The Sky, Rosie, Running On Empty and his Warren Zevon cover Don't Let Us Get Sick. He had no set list for the show instead opting to play whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He took requests from the crowd through out the concert. One of the requests he took was a song called Going Down To Cuba, he said he couldn't remember all the words to the song. That's when his roadie brought out sheets of paper with the lyrics and laid them at his feet so that he could do the song, after asking for his glasses though, as he couldn't read the words that far away from him, no teleprompter here.



Jackson Browne played two set this evening, with the first one lasting about an hour and twenty minutes with a 20 minute break and then the second set playing for another hour or so. I have to admit, I was starting to get bored, the tunes just got a bit too mellow for me and long. While his guitar playing sounds good and his voice is still excellent, I just found two hours of him was too much for me. I can listen to a full album of his, but not sit still for two hours plus in a soft cushion venue, I caught myself yawning a few times. I thought the pace was going to pick up a bit when he brought out Mali singer/songwriter guitar player Habib Koite to join him in a song. It never really mounted to much though. Habib was in town for a show Tuesday night at The Winspear Centre.



One part of the show that bothered me, was when Jackson Browne started talking about an environmental issue that he supports, about getting rid of plastic bottles, that are polluting the ocean and such. That's all fine that he supports such things, nothing wrong with that, what I hate is when these musicians go on and on about such things. I want to hear music not your opinions on boycotting plastic bottles. If it was a benefit show, sure I understand, I mean I would never complain about Willie Nelson going on about the farmers at Farm Aid, but that's what the show is about. But when your playing a concert on tour, please refrain from over selling your causes.

To close out the show, or I think anyways, I left during The Eagles hit song Take It Easy that Jackson Browne wrote. All and all not a bad show. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more had Jackson brought a back up band with him. I would give this concert a 6 out of 10.











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