Steve Martin’s bluegrass show simply swell
Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers Where: Jubilee Auditorium When: Sunday night
Great shows are often described with similar adjectives: amazing, powerful, transcendent. If you’re extra lucky, you might even get a little “deafening” in there. But Sunday night’s bluegrass show played with expertise by Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers was a different sort of animal. It was simply, ridiculously swell.
Swell? Really? Absolutely, man. It was earnest, corny, hilarious, good-time Americana — no drums, just dozens of prettily-picked strings rolling and rising and moving the 2,000 folks in the audience with utter ease.
Let’s admit why we came, though – Martin put it best as he proclaimed amid dozens of one-liners: “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Oh, there’s Steve Martin, another Hollywood celebrity hitching a ride on the bluegrass gravy train,’ ” noting quickly enough that the Rangers are a real, separate act without him: “I am their celebrity,” adding fans might get as excited by this scenario: “I see that Jerry Seinfeld’s playing some original music for the bassoon — a must see.’ ”
The balance was basically perfect. The Rangers are so tight, and Martin, now 66 and born in Comanche country, has been playing the banjo since he was 17. This is not a vanity project. The famous comedian doesn’t look down when he plays, his skill simply pours out.
But as beautiful as the music was, the banter was that brilliant mix of self-deprecation and Dada insanity. Martin has built a lifetime career mashing together this goofy humour like a mountain of potatoes. For example, “By the way, if you’re not enjoying the show so far, you’re wrong.”
Talking about making music, Martin noted his process. “I bet I could write some bad poetry. That might be some bad poetry, (he thought) but it’s pretty good country music.”
The Rangers deserve a nod up high here. Woody Platt — who Martin joked had a name that was just a little too convenient for a bluegrass player — sang the high and lonesomes beautifully. Graham Sharp shared banjo duties with Martin, the two riffing off each other like twin devils on a Greyhound bus.
Mike Guggino played mandolin like a machine and read Martin’s scripted praise for the wild and crazy guy off his iPad in one of the show’s funniest moments, comparing him stiffly to Earl Scruggs. Nicky Sanders’ fiddle was like the river they all swam in. On standup bass, Charles Humphry built the backbone.
Martin noted it was too bad there was no drummer: “No pot,” he moaned.
“The Rangers and I have an agreement,” Martin noted after the hilarious Athiests Don’t Have No Songs. “The minute this stops being fun, that’s when we quit.” The entire band then leaves the stage at this point, of course.
Between The Crow, Pretty Little One, Pitkin County Turnaround, Northern Ireland and other ditties, Martin explained of his five instruments, “You’re probably wondering why I have so many instruments – it’s just a big ego trip.
“I think of my banjos as my children, which means probably at least one of them is not mine.”
He wouldn’t stop. “Whenever I hear a band saying they’re going to play a new song I think, ‘Oh please don’t. Just play the hits.’ But we’re a bluegrass band — we don’t have any hits!”
And on and on. Another great line: “I don’t often do protest songs, but admire the works of Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, so this next song’s called Let’s Keep the Minimum Age Right Where She’s At.”
He talked about neighbours coming over and asking him to play the banjo and saying, “What’s the matter, you don’t like the airhorn?”
Making fun of the band as much as himself, he explained, “These guys don’t really know how to party. I read them their horoscopes and then I braided their hair and then we tried on each others’ clothes. That was fun.”
At another moment he asked the band, “Guys, is there anyone in your life you can’t be glad to be finally and forever rid of?” The band staring at him balefully, before busting into the Martin-sung Jubilation Day.
In the words of the best writer that ever lived, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. A mix of beautiful songs like the sentimental Best Love and non sequiturs about gated communities being created by a supreme being and his tuner emitting far less radiation than it used to, Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers brought a nice night of peace and love we could use right now.
Sanders’ fiddle finale was nothing short of apocalyptic, dropping references to the Beatles, Wings and O Canada.
And, despite threatening otherwise, Martin actually managed to keep his pants on.