Ringo dredges up the past, and it’s a euphoric experience
One could argue drummer was the ‘sad’ Beatle, but there was nothing but joy in Sugar Land show
How did your Friday morning start? I’ll tell you how mine did.
Me: “Siri, play Toto’s ‘Africa.’ ”
Siri: “I’m sorry, I cannot find photos of Africa.”
Me: “Dammit ... Siri, play ‘Africa’ by Toto.”
Siri: “Here’s ‘Africa’ by Toto.” So thanks, Ringo. My antennae always attuned to the mopers, I could easily type some self-serving thing about how Ringo was actually the sad Beatle. The guy whose eyes gave him away. How “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Photograph” are actually pretty sad songs. And how “With a Little Help From My Friends” is the most buoyant song ever made about tamping down anxiety with drugs.
But let’s just be honest, if melancholy slipped into Ringo Starr and His AllStarr Band’s show Thursday at the Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land, it did so without a ticket. The concert was celebratory to the point where I wonder which experience better strokes the ego: Paul McCartney having 70,000 people shout back to him in a stadium, or Ringo having a more modest 5,000 or so engaged fully in a calland-response on “Yellow Submarine” or “With a Little Help.” I’m not a stage guy, nor a Beatle. So I can’t answer that. But Ringo seems more than content with his lot. And he’s really good at it.
What else to say about a show that’s almost unreviewable? It had some regional appeal on a few different planes. Just about everybody in Starr’s band — Ringo included — referenced how it was their first visit to Sugar Land. “I think this is the first time I’ve been to ... ” he said, “Sugar Laaahnd.” On the flip side, his All-Starr Band is a bunch of veteran L.A. session players, so they were clearly aware of being in a Houston sphere since their beloved baseball team came up one win short. A half-century with no World Series meant the assembled crowd was more than willing to sing along to “It Don’t Come Easy.”
I loved how untethered from time this concert was. Starr has become like the Doctor on “Doctor Who.” To the point where his Wikipedia page has numbered his All-Starr Bands. It’s possible he’s due for a regeneration, because this is his 12th. And the first included Billy Preston (RIP), Rick Danko (RIP), Levon Helm (RIP) and Clarence Clemons (RIP).
OK, sorry, enough with the glum stuff. Here are my impressions of the 12th Doctorr-Starr Band.
Todd Rundgren sounded like he was knocking off some rust early on “I Saw the Light,” but his “Love Is the Answer” was a transcendent moment. Musicians of a certain vintage almost always lose the upper register of their voices. Think Tony Bennett, 1955, and Tony Bennett 2017. Both are great. But they don’t sound the same.
On the flip side, I’d never paid Mr. Mister much mind, both back in the day and today. But Richard Page seemed like he could sing a note in South Carolina and have it heard in San Francisco. It mattered not what you thought of Mr. Mister — my stance was indifferent tipping toward affinity. His naked vocal introducing “Kyrie” was something to behold. And I cannot believe I’m typing this amid a review for a nostalgia show, but his new song “You Are Mine” was lovely.
Gregg Rolie was smooth with the Santana stuff, and Toto’s Steve Lukather slashed all night on the guitar. To his credit, Lukather knew when the vocal was bigger than he was, and outsourced the high parts on “Africa.”
And let’s just be clear: On paper, “Africa” is a comical piece of lyrical songwriting. But it’s also an effective musical vessel for people who like a grandiose sort of rock. So is Toto’s “Rosanna,” which I thought I hated. Now I hate myself, because when it was performed live, I found some allure.
This could all just be World Series euphoria. I’m not willing to rule out that the day after Houston’s first ever baseball title, I was on an emotional high.
But I think there’s something more to it than that. This stuff — the good, the bad and the funny — is our shared shorthand. Subsequent generations squirt out and everything changes, but back in 1982 Toto was out of the bicycle basket and running free. And that band of session pros courted a mix-and-match group of late Boomers and early undecideds. That’s a shared crossgenerational experience, whether you were sitting around in 1982 listening to Toto or Black Flag. I tell myself I still prefer Black Flag and some days that’s true. But my defenses are down. I don’t think it makes me a bad man, just a bad wizard.
So enough about the ’80s. Our host was the starr of the evening, even though he anchored just under half the songs as singer. Ringo is preabsolved from any vocal criticisms, which is convenient. Most musicians of his generation can’t hit the high notes. He never hit them in the first place. So he just Ringo’d his way through them with enthusiasm: a guy with a gunfighter’s name and a jester’s manner.
But it struck me, that’s its own valuable thing. It took perhaps 1,000 peace signs flashing before I made the connection. Ringo is the Bizarro Nixon, a true doppleganger representing attributes in reverse. He’s a cultural correction whose positivity offsets a miserable misanthropic crook, even though that crook has been out of office for more than 40 years and dead for more than 20.
I typed that and then instantly recall a visit a few years ago to the Nixon library in southern California where Nixon’s accordion sat on a table in his boyhood home. I forget what the docent said about it, but my memory is that he hoped to squeeze out some approval from his father that never arrived. That’s no fun.
And here we are again: I swore this wasn’t going to be an overly heavy thing about sadness and joy. Yet we have sad Nixon playing the accordion alone, and a sad Liverpudlian stirring up joy for millions on the drums. Or on this night, thousands. But they stood the entire time, entranced by songs that began in 1956 with Johnny Burnette’s “You’re Sixteen” and ended with ... I guess the new one by the Mr. Mister guy? Looking over the setlist, the ‘90s and 2000s didn’t exist. And that’s by design. Nostalgia? Sure. I’ve made peace with it, Ringo’s peace signs helped with that.
So I said, “Siri, play ‘Rosanna’ by Toto.”
Siri said, “I’m sorry, I cannot find ‘Rosanna’ by Toto.”
Ringo said, “It don’t come easy.”