April 12, 1978 review: Robert Palmer and Al DiMeola at Shea's Buffalo

 

As an early fan of Robert Palmer, on a night like this, I felt his pain. 

April 12, 1978 review

Bad Sound, Musicians Force

Palmer into Double Jeopardy

          Singer Robert Palmer’s tour bus promises “Double Fun,” but the stopover it made at Shea’s Buffalo Tuesday night was strictly double trouble.

          Half of the problem was technical. The sound had been a mess from the moment the roadies hooked up the amplifiers. The other half was musical.

          Palmer’s band was incapable of playing the reggae beat. Considering that about a third of his songs are set to the Jamaican rhythm, that’s quite a handicap.

          The English vocalist, steeped in the styles of the American South and the Caribbean, was betrayed by this cut-rate monochromatic quintet every time he ventured into rhythms other than Little Feat or disco patterns.

          Palmer’s composure smoothed over a lot of the mishaps and sustained the high points of the show – the playful punch of “Women Are Smarter” and “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley” and the swell of power in ballads like “Every Kind of People” and “Give Me an Inch, Girl.”

          He got that inch and gave a mile, but the odds were against him. There was an unsteady sound mix, which made his tenor overly bright; a blockheaded spotlight tender, which also made him overly bright, and a somewhat hostile house.

          Not only was it half-full, but it was half-full of Al DiMeola fans, who had just seen their favorite open the evening with an hour of lightning jazz-rock guitar arpeggios.

          DiMeola and his backup quintet had their difficulties with the spotlight, but that was minor compared to the sound. Sound problems made them nearly an hour late. The instrumental mix on the first two numbers was atrocious.

          The 23-year-old former member of Return to Forever then stopped the show. Microphone levels were set up for an acoustic number and it was well worth it. It carried over into the next electric song, Chick Corea’s “Senor Mouse,” and on through the encore of “The Wizard.”

          DiMeloa, dressed in his “Elegant Gypsy” vest, had the manner of a young music professor, alternating between rapid deadpan riffs and romantic flourishes.

          His band was an international crew – two Europeans on keyboards, two Hispanics on rhythm and a Black bassist from New York City – and they matched his maneuvers perfectly, even under the most trying of conditions. Next time Palmer wants double fun, he should hire a band as good as this one.

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTOS: Album covers for Robert Palmer’s “Double Fun” and Al DiMeola’s “Elegant Gypsy.”

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Robert Palmer wasn’t a suave jet-set star yet. His biggest hit – “Addicted to Love” – didn’t show up until the mid 1980s. The “Double Fun” album peaked at No. 45 on the Billboard charts. His feel for Little Feat goes back to the beginning of his solo career. He toured with them as a guest singer and incorporated them into his first two albums, notably the excellent 1975 “Pressure Drop” LP, which has the classic Toots & the Maytals song as its title track. He died of a heart attack in Paris in 2003 at the age of 54.

          Al DiMeola was still in the early stages of his post-Return to Forever career and, for many fans, this was his best music. “Elegant Gypsy,” his second solo album, went gold.

          No accounting for what either Robert Palmer or Al DiMeola did that night on setlist.fm. For Palmer, it was probably a lot like his concert at Kent State University in Ohio four nights later:

          Opening song unknown

          Pressure Drop

          Work to Make It Work

          Some People Can Do What They Like

          Sailin’ Shoes (Little Feat cover)

          Hey Julia

          Every Kinda People

          Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley

          (unkown)

          Night People (Allen Toussaint cover)

          (encore)

          Give Me an Inch

          You’re Gonna Get What’s Coming

          A partial report of Al DiMeola’s show a week earlier at the Landmark Theater in Syracuse goes like this on setlist.fm:

          Casino

          Dark Eye Tango

          (Unknown)

          Land of the Midnight Sun

          (Unknown)

          Elegant Gypsy Suite



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