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Banana Wind Tour Jun 5, 1996 (28 years ago) Deer Creek Music Center Noblesville, Indiana, United States
Buffett plays strong show with smart song mix MARC D. ALLAN Indianapolis Star 04 June 1996
Jimmy Buffett Three and a 1/2 stars Where: Deer Creek Music Center. When: Monday (also Wednesday). Star ratings: 4 excellent, 3 good, 2 fair, 1 poor.
Could someone tell me when summer's really gonna start?" Jimmy Buffett asked Monday night. "Right now!"
True to his word, Buffett's appearance at Deer Creek Music Center (Wednesday is the second of two sold-out shows) staved off the recent chill. If the weather didn't feel completely like summer, the two-hours-plus performance certainly provided enough warmth for everyone in the crowd of better than 20,000.
At a Buffett show, Hawaiian shirts are the uniform, 50-somethings battle teen-agers to swat the endless stream of beach balls that fly overhead and every Coke seems to have rum in it. And while the mere presence of Buffett and his 14-person Coral Reefer Band signals party time, this year's show offers their strongest musical performance in many summers.
Not only is the band especially sharp - with highlights including a vivacious version of Fruitcakes; the brassy-sounding Fins; the soulful harmonica Greg ""Fingers" Taylor added to A Pirate Looks at Forty; and the addition of the terrific, underrated songwriter Mac McAnally, who contributes several songs and complementary harmonies - but the show has almost no lulls.
Buffett has probably a dozen songs that guarantee the audience's total enthusiasm; the trick has always been to mix in new and obscure songs, plus a few covers, without dragging down the set.
This year, in two sets of about an hour each, plus two scheduled encores, Buffett and company maintained an admirable pace and consistently intelligent song selections. Even the tunes chosen from his new disc, Banana Wind, which arrives in stores today, sounded like old, familiar friends.
Jamaica Mistaica made light of the day authorities thought Buffett was smuggling drugs in his seaplane. Holiday, which celebrates the idea of life as a vacation, bubbled over with good-natured trumpet (by Indianapolis native John Lovell) and steel-drum solos, along with lyrics that everyone who works around computers could appreciate: "You're caught up in the Internet/you think it's such a great asset/you're wrong, wrong, wrong."
As always, Buffett tapped into the audience's desire to escape the rat race, even for a few hours. His are songs of wanderlust, of a life that many people dream about but only Buffett and a few others get to live.
He's carefree, but never careless about making sure his fans achieve a virtual Key West vacation. This year's trip is better than most.
Copyright 1996 - Indianapolis Star - All Rights Reverved
Classic Rock, Contemporary Folk, Country, Country Rock, Folk Rock, Pop Rock, Rock, Singer-Songwriter, Soft Rock, Mellow Gold, Beach Music, and Trop Rock.
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