Here is my concert review for Westbury Music Fair, August 4, 2003: Westbury Music Fair is a great place to see a concert because it is a small venue (about 2500 seats), a theater in the round with the a rotating stage in the middle. Tonight’s audience consisted of people of all ages; I saw children, teenagers, young adults, and a few seniors mixed in with the mainly 35-55 crowd. The set list was the same as on previous shows in the tour. Ringo was very jovial with the audience and made jokes about the rotating stage. The audience was very responsive in return. Ringo’s voice sounded very good tonight, and it was refreshing to hear him sing a few different songs than the ones I had heard him perform on previous tours. I loved his performance of “Don’t Pass Me By”, as well as his two new songs, “Memphis in Your Mind” and “Never Without You”. The latter song was very touching, and you could hear the emotion in Ringo’s voice as he sang his tribute to his dear friend George. As much as I love the All-Starrs, my only complaint is that I wish there were more time to hear Ringo play a more varied selection from his own considerable repertoire. But it’s a credit to Ringo’s non-competitive and generous nature that he enjoys sharing the spotlight with others. The rest of the All-Starr band was great. It was terrific to hear Colin Hay perform “Land Down Under” and “Overkill”. I loved hearing Paul Carrack perform “Tempted” and “Living Years”, as well as John Waite perform “Isn’t It Time” and “Missing You”. I also enjoyed hearing Sheila E’s two songs, “A Love Bizarre” and “The Glamorous Life”. The musicianship overall was very good, much better than I had expected, since I had read that this band did not have a strong guitarist. But Colin Hay was quite competent enough to handle most of the lead guitar duties, even if he did not reproduce, for example, the distinctive jangly guitar sound of “It Don’t Come Easy”. Multi-instrumentalist Mark Rivera did a tremendous job playing saxophone, congas, guitar, tamborine, or even providing some background vocals as needed to fill out the sound. Besides hearing Ringo perform his own songs, and hearing the other All-Starrs perform their songs, it is just as much of a treat to watch Ringo play drums, both on the other All-Starr’s songs, and on his own “Boys” and “I Wanna Be Your Man”. He still has that same smooth style he had when he was with the Beatles. It’s a style I have never seen from any other drummer that I have watched perform over the years, even in Beatles tribute bands. Today’s drummers have a much more flashy style than Ringo, with elaborate drum kits, and with their arms appearing to flail all over the place. Ringo uses a much simpler kit, and seems to move his drumsticks more with his wrists than his arms. Watching Ringo and Sheila play drums together onstage is a true demonstration of these contrasting styles. While Sheila is a fabulous drummer and percussionist whose flashy, busy style is a real crowd-pleaser, it is apparent that Ringo’s economical style is sheer brilliance that is beautiful to watch and easy to overlook. If you haven’t yet purchased tickets to an upcoming Ringo show, and if you still have the opportunity, then I urge you to do it.
Westbury can be fun because there isn't a bad seat in the house. It seats 3,250 and it is a theatre in the round, with one of those revolving stages that were popular back in the late 1950's early 60s. This is I think the last one in the Northeast that actually still has the revolving stage. But Westbury can be maddening too because if your favorite song comes up the band could be facing the other end of the hall and the performers have their backs to you... For the most part the audiences are appreciative, but no one really gets up to dance there. Ringo made his "getting to know you" joke about the revolving stage..."just get to know you, and you're gone and now it's someone else, etc." He said that he had been using that joke for 10 years on us at Westbury and people still laugh! He also made mention of the awful weather and asked if it was (still) storming out. On our way to the show there were torrential rains and thunderstorms so bad they closed some of the roads and were taking people off the parkways in the wrong direction because of the flash flooding (we made the Weather channel!). For the first half of the show he wore a Ringo Rama tee shirt, and when he changed he was wearing a tee with a hand imprint and the word "Made" written under it... HandMade, get it? Sheila has started doing this "Who's the funky drummer in the house" to which the band gets everyone to respond "Ringo!" during her solo for Love Bizarre.... For the solo spot this night we had Colin doing "Waiting for My Real Life to Begin". In the middle of the show, as the stage revolved to face a new set of people, a guy yelled out and held up an album and a pen. Ringo responded with, "Sure, I'm gonna stop everything and take care of you..." Ringo's wife Barb was sitting in the area where the guitar and drum and audio techs were set up (sort of like an orchestra pit on one quarter side of the stage) during the show and he sang a good deal of "You're Sixteen" to her, changing the words to "We fell in love on the day we met.."John Waite also made more jokes about Tom Jones and started to sing "It's not unusual" again, but said he only knew two lines, that was all the time he had to research. Ringo seems to be getting on trading quips and barbs with John and Sheila the most. He loves to do the man vs. woman schtick with Sheila.
Second Westbury show was similar to the first, however the solo spot tonight was Paul Carrack doing an acoustic guitar version of "All My Loving".
I just wanted to give you a few thoughts on the show Tues. night before I forget. as with last year Sheila E. is great, it was great to see the rest of the band stand there as she did her drum solo. Colin Hay: The Men at Work songs sounded great live and while he is never going to be considered a guitar hero, the licks he played were very good. when they started Yellow Submarine, Ringo said to him, "Now, Colin play that famous chord you learned." He tended to look down during his playing as if he was concentrating on the playing. John Waite was good, not the standout of the show though. He did attempt a Tom Jones thing before Missing You. Very funny. Paul Carrack did All My Loving when ringo left the stage, then they did "Here Comes the Sun." Ringo was very relaxed. All in all an excellent show.
(8/7/03) From Deb:
Hi Steve! I was at last night's Westbury show. I've seen Ringo and the All-Starrs many times, but I've never seen Ringo enjoy himself as much as he did last night. Others have described the show perfectly. The only thing I can add is that Westbury is the perfect venue for Ringo and the band. The stage rotates and there isn't a bad seat in the house. Lots of fans were shouting things to Ringo and he was shouting right back. He was funny, witty, spontaneous and had us all laughing last night. And we had him laughing too! If you can see him at Westbury in the future, do it!!! Thanks!
Deb
And from Bill Coffan:
Great show, band was very loose and enjoying themselves. Ringo remarked how much he loved playing there as the venue is small and he could, and did, here everything the audience had to say. He was verbally jousting with the crowd, good naturedly, all evening. Some Tom Jones tunes were started by some band members as a lark about an upcoming show there by Mr. Jones. Photos were virtually a free for all and, being familiar with the venue, I brought along my 35mm with a 300 mm zoom lens, Needless to say, I shot 3 rolls of outstanding photos and can't wait to retrieve them from the photo shop. Advice to all: bring your cameras, all they can say is no pictures, then everyone goes right ahead and snaps away anyway. I've seen four shows so far, this one, the Taj Mahal, Bryant Park, and Radio City and I haven't seen anyone having a problem yet.