Of all the people I’ve seen in concert, I’ve seen Gregg Allman the most. I saw him six times in the 1990s with the Allman Brothers Band, and now four times with Gregg Allman & Friends. Carol and I first saw him in Pueblo, Colorado the day after we got married in 1987. He was on tour promoting his then-new album, I’m No Angel. He opened for Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. This is the first time I took my kids to a concert. My oldest son Greg has actually heard Gregg Allman before. Carol was six-months pregnant with him when we saw Gregg at The Boathouse in Norfolk, Virginia in late 1995. And now fifteen years later Greg got to actually see him in person. Since both Greg and Mark were little kids they’ve been exposed to the Allman Brothers Band, and unlike other kids they actually like the music their parents listen to. I thought this would be the time for them to go to their first concert. They liked what they saw, liked what they heard and had a good time. It wasn’t too loud and didn’t destroy their hearing. It’s good to see Gregg in a setting that doesn’t demand high-volume guitar heroics
The venue for the evening’s festivities was the Saenger Theatre in Pensacola. It’s an old Spanish Baroque/Rococo style theater that first opened its doors in 1925. It hosted Vaudeville-type road shows, Broadway plays, and silent screen classics. During World War II it stayed open constantly to show news reels from the war. Later years saw use as a movie house until 1975 when age caught up with it. It fell into disrepair and closed. That same year the theater was donated to the city of Pensacola as a cultural arts center. Both the city of Pensacola and the University of West Florida restored the theater in a joint effort. The restoration took four years and $15 million dollars, and the theater reopened in 1981. Today it’s on the National Registry of Historical Sites. I have but one complaint. The seating isn’t meant for tall people or large people. One gets the feeling of sitting in coach on a cross-country flight. But that is a minor complaint. With a capacity of 2,250, it’s a cozy little place to see concerts. We saw Peter Frampton there last October. It’s a little smaller than New York’s Beacon Theatre, where the Allman Brothers play a multi-night stand every March [the real “March Madness” if you ask me and other Peacheads].
Jaimoe’s Jassz Band opened the show with a pretty good set. They played selections from their new CD Renaissance Man. I recognized all of two songs: Leaving Trunk and Rainy Night in Georgia. I wasn’t sure what to expect except to hear jazz. I’m not a jazz person. The closest I get to liking jazz is the improvisational music played by the Allman Brothers Band. But when I see a band that says they play jazz, I thought that’s all I would hear. I was pleasantly surprised when the music Jaimoe and his band ranged from jazz to R&B, blues and soul. Another pleasant surprise was Junior Mack. He played guitar and sang. I’d heard of Junior Mack but I’d never heard any of his music. I know he’s sat in from time to time with the Allman Brothers Band, but that’s the only connection I had with him. After his performance in Pensacola I’d like to find anything else that bears his name. He’s a very good guitarist and an even better singer. A note of humor – after Jaimoe introduced the members of his band, someone in the audience shouted out “who are you?” Jaimoe smiled and said “I’m Johanny Johanson from Gulfport, Mississippi.
Jaimoe's Jassz Band (Picture courtesy of Slyckyr, Allman Brothers Band web forum)
After a fifteen minute break to get the instruments in place, Gregg Allman & Friends took the stage. The big surprise of the evening for me was hearing Please Call Home. In all the times I’ve seen Gregg Allman, this was the first time I heard that song live. It was the Laid Back version, not the Idlewild South version. I’d seen from setlists of previous shows from this tour and I noticed the show we saw was one of the very few where he played it. In other shows on this tour he played Just Another Rider. We didn’t hear that, nor did we hear Midnight Rider. Midnight Rider wasn’t missed since I’ve heard it live many times before, but I was looking forward to hearing Just Another Rider. I think he’s past the stage of promoting his latest album, Low Country Blues. He’s digging deeper into his back catalog. But I got to hear Please Call Home, so that made up for it. Another surprise was the number of Allman Brothers songs in his set. About half the songs his set was ABB songs. Dreams and Wasted Words were especially good. It was good to hear Dreams without a screaming guitar. Scott Sharrard is a fine player, and he didn’t feel the need to go b`lls-to-the-wall like Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes or Dickey Betts would in an ABB setting. Hearing Wasted Words live during this show was another first for me. I’d always wanted to hear These Days and Melissa in the same show, and I finally got my wish. We got to hear Jay Collins play the flute on Melissa. I wasn’t sure how a flute would work with Gregg Allman’s music, but it di and very well. When the band played Ridin’ Thumb, I didn’t recognize it. I pride myself in knowing Gregg’s music inside and out, but this one stumped me. I had to look it up when I got home. It’s a song written by Jimmy Seals [of Seals and Crofts fame] that had been covered by the likes of Ray Charles, King Curtis, and Three Dog Night. When I found that Ray Charles had done it, it’s inclusion in Gregg’s set made perfect sense. I would love to have heard Queen of Hearts from Laid Back, but on this night it was not to be. Gregg’s rendition of Whipping Post was the Searching for Simplicity arrangement, not the jam monolith from the first ABB album.
Gregg was in very fine voice. He reaffirmed why he is my favorite singer. Considering that he had liver cancer and had a liver transplant two years ago, he’s holding up very well. When I first saw him he was 39 years old. Now he’s 64 (!). He spent most of the evening behind his Hammond B-3 organ, but he’d play the acoustic guitar on some songs [These Days, Melissa, Floating Bridge], a Fender Stratocaster on others [I Can’t Be Satisfied, Whipping Post, One Way Out]. It must be hell to be talented.
The setlist:
I’m No Angel / Statesboro Blues / Please Call Home / I Can’t Be Satisfied / Ridin’ Thumb / You Must Be Crazy [Floyd Miles] / These Days / Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ / Dreams / Wasted Words / Melissa / Going Back To Daytona [Floyd Miles] / Just Before the Bullets Fly / Whipping Post
Encore:
Floating Bridge / One Way Out
The band:
Gregg Allman – vocals, Hammond B-3, acoustic and electric guitar
Floyd Miles – vocals, percussion
Scott Sharrard – guitars
Bruce Katz – keyboards
Jay Collins – saxophones, flute
Jerry Jemmott – bass
Steve Potts - drums
Gregg Allman & Friends (Picture courtesy of Slyckyr, Allman Brothers Band web forum)
Gregg Allman & Friends (Picture courtesy of Slyckyr, Allman Brothers Band web forum)
Not all of the entertainment came from the stage. We sat up in the balcony, about six rows back. There’s a small half-wall between the first three rows and the rest of the balcony seats. A guy who sat three rows in front of us and had way too much to drink, and during one of the songs he jumped over the wall and stating to pretend to play piano on the half-wall. In his mind he was Jerry Lee Lewis. He was fun to watch. Too bad the light wasn’t good enough for me to film him. Otherwise I’d post it here. I was highly amused. There weren’t any twirlers though…I guess they only go to Allman Brothers shows.
All things considered [to borrow a phrase], it was an excellent show. I’m especially glad my boys went with us. They got to see real musicians play real music that means so much to many people. Gregg Allman has a knack for taking old songs, re-arranging them and making them sound fresh. I hope that someday soon Gregg will see fit to record another album and that he will stop by Pensacola again.
Thanks to Slyckyr, a "Peach Pro" from the Allman Brothers Band website forum for allowing me to use his pictures. He was at the same show but took better pictures than I did.
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