Crossing the diamond with the pearl

"Is this a Claritin ad?"

That's the question my amigo dropped on me halfway through Michael McDonald's set at the Shoreline Amphitheater Monday night. Yes, I spent an evening watching the king of yacht rock, both by himself and backing up Steely Dan, in a night of music I won't ever forget.

The Claritin question wasn't the only thing my amigo dropped. I wasn't planning to go at all, but once he e-mailed to say, "I can't find a hot date, so I'm bringing you," I was on that extra ducat before you could say "Bodhisattva." (As you may know, the Dan has been a regular on my turntable for about 18 years now, with no sign of being shelved for long.) At $65 a ticket, I thought maybe I'd sit this one out, but for free? I'll bring the six-pack for the parking lot, my friend, and the next A's game is on me.

Evidently I wasn't the only one who's been listening for awhile. We were almost certainly the youngest people in Row R of Section 203, and we were clearly among the youngest 5% of attendees at this "Sugartooth McDan" event. A lot of people had "ex-cokehead" (or maybe not quite ex-) written all over their sagging, ashen faces. Others, I am somewhat shocked to report, became surprisingly animated for stuff like "Takin' It To The Streets," which I guess prompts fond memories in a certain American boomer subculture that has now largely backslid into obesity. You should've seen the crowd shots on the video monitors during "What A Fool Believes." I mean, I knew whitey had no rhythm, but this was something to behold. The overhead clap has never been so avant-garde.

Anyway I spent part of the McDonald set watching the swallows dive through the clouds of marijuana smoke rising above Section 203, gazing at the three video monitors sheltered beneath Shoreline's shapely white tent, and trying to figure out whether I could take McDonald seriously at all. The music sounded the way it always sounds in those big sheds, regardless of who's playing -- that weird unnatural drum sound, the bass that's probably not muddy if you pay extra to sit in the 100s level, and the slight delay due to the difference in the speeds of sound and light, that creeps you out when you watch the singer or the drummer on the giant video screens. We arrived just in time for "Sweet Freedom" (theme from Running Scared, right?!?) and eventually bolted for the bar when McDonald started desecrating Marvin Gaye's corpse during "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."

The Dan were another thing entirely. The ten-piece band took the stage without our two heroes, doing some sort of hard-bop Blakey thing until Fagen skulked out to his Rhodes and Becker mainlined -- er, made a beeline for his blue guitar. "Won't you take me by the hand," they asked, and we did. Then there was "Time Out Of Mind," making us think the set list might veer toward the strange, but it really didn't. Heavy on Aja all night, leaving out only "Black Cow" and "Home At Last." (Set list here.)

I kind of figured a 2006 Steely Dan show would have to balance the three R's: Recital, Re-creation and Revival. Is this going to be a bunch of old men reading charts? Is it a simulation of a 1970s LP? Or is it new life for old songs? Fortunately, the show tended toward the last. Most of the band was older, but there were some kids up there too. The very young drummer did Steve Gadd justice on "Aja," and seemed to be driving the bus at many points during the evening. Fagen looked a little silly playing that keyboard/harmonica thing (I guess it's commonly called a melodica or a "hooter," seen in above photo), but his campy stage presence and bad sneakers were appropriately smarmy. I expected no less.

Bonnie Raitt appeared for a song, actually saving the bit of juvenilia called "Dirty Work" from the scrap heap. "Hey Nineteen" was a huge middle-aged ex-cokehead singalong, although the Bubber Miley-vs-Tricky Sam plunger-mute horn argument bit was my favorite part. They trotted out McDonald for seven songs, including the weird "foreign movie" harmony in "Peg," and let him sing lead on "Show Biz Kids" and most of "Do It Again." The proceedings ended with "My Old School," and although Fagen blew the words a couple of times, it didn't matter.

Steely Dan was perfect for the occasion, and more: 70 degrees at showtime, a cooling sunset overlooking the GooglePlex from behind the hill, a bunch of smug druggies folding their arms as if to say "here we are now, entertain us", and a faint memory of what surely was a really good time for a bunch of ornery putzes in the 1970s ruling the evening. I guess you don't really understand those laid-back 70s Eagles people until you've walked a mile in their shoes sandals. I get it, California, I do.


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