Steely Dan/The Doobies 29/10/17 at The O2

Kebabkid

Anyone else there tonight? What did you think? I thought it was a terrific gig.

Despite being a fan and having even played several of their songs in a West Coast band years ago, I'd never seen The Doobies before and that was a real treat. They delivered with great musicianship, good vocals and a lot of energy.

Steely Dan, however, were off this planet. It must've been weird for Donald Fagen to be playing without Walter Becker but it still worked and whilst Fagen's voice strains a lot more these days and does benefit from the reinforcement on offer from the excellent backing singers (The Danettes), it's still there and the band were superb and it's still Steely Dan and long may they continue.

Since their 90s comeback, Drew Zingg was always my favourite guitarist as he captured the vibe, accuracy, feel and tone of people like Larry Carlton but that changed tonight with me actually hearing Jon Herrington live. The guy played out of his skin and did a fabulous job and he kept pretty true to the original solos, which I prefer - Wayne Krantz was inventive but just too off the wall for me.

Jon Herrington's amp of choice appeared to be a Fender HRD (EDIT:confirmed a Hot Rod Deville) plus pedals (EDIT:confirmed Keeley-modded Boss Blues Driver and Keeley Luna, some Strymon Deco delay and Boss Reverb mixed in) but his cleans, low and medium gain sounds were excellent. His Gibson CS336 took care of guitar duties for the night apart from a Tele on one song, "Hey Nineteen" and what a sound that was.
See link for what he uses - http://jonherington.com/gear.html

For the bassists, it was Freddie Washington of Patrice Rushen's "Forget me nots" fame handling the low end. As you'd expect, the rest of the band were very good but the standout was the drummer, Keith Carlock.

Those of you who are going to catch them in Ireland tonight (30th), I think you're in for a treat and the set was varied and classic.

richardhomer

A mate of mine who’s an Uber-fan was there - he was raving about it on Facebook.

lustycourtier

A friend of mine is Elvis Costellos TM, and they did a Co Headline US tour with Steely Dan last year. He was raving about them every night. I wish I could of caught a show.

Kebabkid

I saw them for the first time in the mid-90s at Wembley Stadium and it wasn't a good gig. The sound was poor, the arrangements were a little too wacky and as a lot of the band were signed artists in their own right, they were being introduced and taking long and indulgent solos all night. Although Fagen made a joke last night about only having an hour 20 mins to play, they made really good use of it and the sound was spot on for both bands.

From a musical point of view, I see no reason for the band to cease gigging - if it had been Fagen that passed away, these gigs would not be happening. However, we don't know how he feels continuing without his friend, co-writer and band mate. Let's see

welshboyo

I too was of the same opinion about Zingg...until I saw Herrington...

I wasn't there last night but saw them on the 2 Against Nature Tour - so glad I managed to see them.

Kebabkid

General consensus amongst people I know who attended the gig seem to favour The Doobie Brothers as the "Band of the Evening" and say they had the edge over Steely Dan but not for me.

I thought they'd be a lot more people from here that were in attendance.

joneve

Wanted to go with my dad but couldn’t get tickets and didn’t want to pay through the nose.

saw the Doobies on the ‘World Gone Crazy’ tour a few years ago at the Hammersmith Apollo and they were incredible. 

Would havr been good to see The Dan again too. 

Whitecat

Was there. The Doobies were indeed excellent - hard to imagine a band could be much tighter - and Johnston's voice especially is absolutely killing it.

But I thought Dan were really exceptional - despite the arena venue for them (would much prefer them in a theatre), and the sad absence of Becker, it was a helluva set. Feel ripped off that they could and would have played longer if it weren't for Sunday curfews at the O2. We missed out on a few tracks including Walter's 'Book Of Liars' (with an accompanying photo montage tribute) that they have played litererally everwhere else on the tour. 'Home At Last' and another of Donald's solo tracks (can't quite recall which atm) were also exorcised to fit the time slot.

Though Herington really stepped his game up to fill out that missing space - there were only a few moments when you noticed where two guitars should have been in order, he did such a great job. Puts his own stamps on things but knows when to stick with the original melodies.

Carlock is a monster drummer but I've never quite felt he can nail the Purdie shuffle on 'Babylon Sisters' (Jeff Porcaro is the only other drummer who ever could) - although it was cool to hear that either way as something they haven't played in a while (although we lost 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number' I think to make room for it...)

'Time Out Of Mind' and 'My Old School' were probably my personal highlights... just the band sounding its absolute finest.

Fagen's voice, although certainly not what it once was was actually quite a bit better than it has been in some videos I'd been checking out of the past few tours. Perhaps the rest he had by having to cancel the Japanese solo tour due to infection helped? Anyway, it all worked...

Where I was sitting (floor middle) it all sounded excellent too mix-wise, but I dunno how it would be for those in the rafters...

So yeah, really really hopeful that wasn't the last time I'll ever see SD but time moves on rapidly and you get the sense this is definitely the twilight.

Kebabkid

Spot on @Whitecat and SD had it for me.

However, there's a bit of an unsavory story emerging about the York gig for The Doobies. The date was changed but Eventim UK failed to notify the customers. No refund and no offer of tickets for this weekend's Manchester gig. Several of my friends fell foul of this but there were quite a few others who turned up on the night and were also affected by this

Whitecat

Yikes, that's not a good look for them... they should send their story to consumer.champions@theguardian.com or maybe other media outlets? 

(Have each send a variation on the story rather than all lumped as one, they may take it more seriously if they got a number of complaints)

rlw

I saw Herrington for the first time in a three piece with Madeleine Peyroux.  CS336 and an amp and I was totally blown away by every aspect of his sound and playing;

Stinkfoot

Me and most of the rest of our band were there. We were like an excited bunch of kids before the show!

I'd only ever seen them at Hammersmith previously and I was anxious about how the sound would be at the O2 -  I'd seen Prince there and had one of the worst sounds I'd ever experienced sat up near the roof. But about 4 rows off the floor the sound was unusually good for such a big venue I thought.

They really are a super-tight band, but I think the virtuosity of the musicians stops it from sounding too machine-like as they get to stretch out a bit and go off-piste a little in the solos. Jon Herington I think has the right mix between improvising and staying respectful to some key parts. I hadn't heard him play the Kid C solo note for note before, so wonder if that was his choice or a directive from Donald?! I really love his playing and , on some of his solo records especially, you can really hear a personality and sense of humour coming through alongside the excellent technique. 

They could have played until the early hours and probably still have missed some of my favourite tracks out, so I'm just grateful for what we had and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Nitefly

Some great reviews here - thanks very much, folks.

I was fortunate enough to see the Dan twice - once with my dad at the NEC on the Y2K tour, and once with my brother at the Birmingham Arena on the Left Bank Holiday tour (2009 - my 60th birthday present) - both were really special for us.