Review: Jimmy Buffett

Photos by Susan Pfannmuller/Special to The Star

Jimmy Buffet's previous show in Kansas City was out at the Sandstone amphitheater on May 3,1997 -- three U.S. presidents ago. The world has changed a lot since then. Buffett hasn't. He's 64 now, a little paunchier and balder, but he's still the ringleader of the biggest party band in the music business.

Saturday night, before 17,000 fans in the Sprint Center -- many of them dressed in various and outlandish Parrothead attire (plastic leis, coconut-shell bras, Hawaiian shirts, shark-head headdresses) -- Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band made up for their long absence from these parts by throwing down a show that lasted nearly two and a half hours and a 27-song setlist that included a few well-known covers and all of his best-known material.

The name of this road show is the Welcome to Fin Land Tour, and the stage was set up invoked tropical climes: sand, umbrellas, a gaggle of beach balls, a hurricane fence. With his 11-piece band in tow, Buffett arrived on stage as if dressed for a day at the beach: barefoot and in board shorts and a sky-blue T-shirt.

He is best-known for songs about drinking, fun-living and and kicking back in the sun. His opener, however, "The Wino and I Know," is about paying one's dues the hard way ("The wino and I know the pain of street singin' "). It was an apt prelude for a guy who did just that and is now enjoying the bounty of his labor. He followed that with a cover of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl,” then dived into his own catalog of songs both novel and substantive.

“It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” one of those classic party/drinking songs, set off the first explosion from a crowd that had been getting lubricated outside the arena long before 5 p.m. Later, “Margaritaville” (which included the “lost verse”) would ignite a similar response.

But Buffett can write poignant ballad, too, and he departed from the party theme with a few of those, like “Come Monday,” a love song for the woman he is missing, “One Particular Harbour,” a jaunty tribute to an equatorial haven, and “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” which honors his sea-faring father and grandfather.

The mood in the arena would swing like that all night, from moments of frat-party revelry (“Cheeseburger in Paradise”) to moments of beer-buzzed introspection, which prompted some arms-around-shoulder swaying among friends.

Buffett is a natural storyteller with a warm and wry stage personae, and between songs he kept the mood afloat with anecdotes and jokes, including a recollection of his “near-death experience” when he took an accidental face-planting dive off a stage in Australia in April. During “Margaritaville,” he improvised a line or two about State Line Road and the confusion between Kansas and Missouri.

Before “Life Is Just a Tire Swing,” he acknowledged someone in the crowd who had also survived a bad accident: former Chief Ed Podolak, who was seriously injured in February when struck by a car in Scottsdale, Ariz. 

Several times he shared the spotlight: with his backup singers on a cover of Bill Withers’ “Use Me,” and with his guitarist Mac McAnally on “Back Where I Come From.”

The main set ended with a raucous cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Southern Cross,” which set off the loudest sing-along of the night. He opened his encore with “The Great Filling Station Holdup,” fusing it with some of the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider.”

He closed the long night alone on stage, strumming an acoustic version of “Lovely Cruise,” his own “Thanks for the Memories.” The world has changed a lot since he recorded that song in 1977, but it still tells the same truth: The good times come and go; enjoy them and preserve them.

Setlist: The Wino and I Know; Brown Eyed Girl; Off to See the Lizard; Havana Daydreamin'; It's Five O'clock Somewhere; Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes; Life is Just a Tire Swing; Come Monday; Peanut Butter Conspiracy; Son of a Son of a Sailor; School Boy Heart; Cheeseburger in Paradise; One Particular Harbour; Use Me; Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season; Jolly Mon Sing; Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street; Volcano; Bama Breeze; Margaritaville; A Pirate Looks at 40; Back Where I Come From; Fins; Southern Cross. Encore: The Great Filling Station Holdup; Last Man Standing; Lovely Cruise.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

 

Comments

[Clint]

Kind of impossible to review...it is not entirely about Buffett or the songs. It is about that plus the crowd, the shared event and just some escapism. Great show and hard to believe this is the 2nd time he has played in KC, MO.

[kcmom]

And this review (I agree with every word) was written by...?

[Hamster]

I think Clint nailed it on the head - TF did a nice piece, but it's tought to write a review of just the concert. A weekend Jimmy Buffett concert is sort of an all-day event/circus. As much (if not most)of entertainment took place outside the Sprint Center before the show as did inside with Jimmy & the CRB on stage. I'm typically not much of a people-watcher, but the pre-concert crowd at the Power & Light District was like a stripper standing on a street corner - you could'nt peel your eyes away from it...

I enjoyed the music and story-telling inside Sprint Center last night, but if I were put in the position of only being able to attend one - either the pre-concert party or the concert - I'm not so sure that I wouldn't pick the pre-contert party.

[aardvark]

tim, you get anyone to review the whigs show at riot room? they were great, albeit a short set

[Steve J]

I guess I'd have to go to a show to "get it." I got a co-worker who has been to like 15 of his shows around the country.

[Metalmomma]

Loved the concert and loved the entire day's festivities leading up to it. Thanks JB.

[Shirlee]

From Friday evening at Knuckleheads until Sunday AM when it was time to go home it was a totally awesome weekend. Great CONCERT, great PEOPLE, great FUN.

[Elrayo]

Glad I wasn't there. Sounds like a d-bag convention.

[David Zimmerman]

Im pretty sure he did Off to See the Lizard early in the show and had a new verse for it that was all about his stage diving down under. Otherwise a good review of the event....really should have been at Arrowhead or Sandstone rather than cramped inside at Sprint, but they;ve gotta pay for that new building somehow!