Troy Music Hall – Pat Metheny – A Review by Dick Beach

Pat Metheny at Troy Music Hall.

On a lovely fall evening, it seemed appropriate to hit the wayback machine.  Things have changed over the 30 plus years since last I’d seen Pat Metheny.  We’ve all gotten older, perhaps put on a couple pounds and gone grey.  All these things can likely be said about Pat.  Not too many pounds – he looked great.  Aged – sure.  He still had an impish look about him.  Grey hair.  You bet – in a wonderfully wild mass.

What has not changed is the pure joy of his playing. In support of his most recent release, Dream Boxes, the musicality of a man who is also a supreme technician was stunning. There are many guitar players who can play all the notes in the right place at the right time.  A really small subset make it real music.  Artistic. Soulful. Dynamic.

Just plain wow.

Constant companion and I lost count of all the instruments played. There were 6 string guitars with nylon strings.  Others with metal. Baritone guitars with the middle 2 strings tuned an octave high. Not wanting to do all the standard stuff, Pat had an 8 string guitar (12 would have been mundane).  And the seriously overkill custom 42 string instrument.  There was one neck, however, there were 2 tuning heads.  All played with an ease that belayed the artistry.

What did he play?  A wide variety of his catalog, some mellow, some hectic, others fun.  Ran the gamut.

The vast majority of the Troy Music Hall show was Pat Metheny originals, many were seamless medleys.  Among the pieces not his material was a medley that included ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ (the Carpenters), ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ (best known as performed by Astrud Gilberto, vocals, and Stan Getz, saxophone) and closed by ‘There’s a Place for Us’ from West Side Story.  Familiar, but not trite. All flowing as if they had been written that way.

Then, there was the fun stuff.  Employing a digital loop device, Pat accompanied himself on a number of pieces.  And it kept getting bigger and bigger.  Not only were there black cloth covered guitars to allow him different guitar sound to loop and play against, there was what, for lack of a better term, the mother of all Rube Goldberg percussion rigs.  Two sets of 3, 6 foot (or so) wide shelves covered with banging, shaking, rattling things.  The only thing that would have made it cooler would be if the mini cymbals lower center were cymbal playing monkey toys.  Looping live and a bunch of preprogrammed digital triggers made a wonderful noise to accompany awesome guitar playing.  The first piece with this rig got a standing ovation.  Knowing how it was done is simple.  Making music is hard.

Two finishing standing ovations brought him back out.  The closer of the show ( close to 2 and a half hours’ worth) was a beautiful rendition of Wichita Lineman. Written by Jimmy Web (who has written nearly everything important in my lifetime) for Glen Campbell, it was a melancholy rendition of a song that makes me cry.

Remind me not to wait another 30 years.

Review by Dick Beach.