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Patti Austin was the special guest/'front act'. She sounds exactly the same.
But we went there for Mr. Benson.
Ibanez GB10?
Doing his thing
Awesome.
Before he started playing, I wished that the concert wouldn't be too pop-py/cheesy. Thankfully, he played mostly jazz songs, with some cheesy pop sprinkled here and there, but not too much. I think majority of the audience didn't appreciate that he sang his pop songs with a jazzy edge, scatting whenever he can, but that's GB and he's got such a strong jazz core. It was hard to sing along though ;) That aside, we were blown away by his music, his guitar skills and the band. It took him and his band quite a bit of time to set up, but it was totally worth it. At one point, Patti Austin went back onstage to sing Moody's Mood with GB, which was the highlight of the night for me. They scatted to their hearts' content - I've seen a few jazz concerts before, but I've never seen scat the way they did it that night. It was precious.
Most of the people who watched the concert were middle-aged to seniors. I saw some folks our age, but there weren't a lot. You could tell that the crowd was a bit, ahem, old, because after the show ended at around midnight, everyone rushed out of the coliseum and on to their cars to go home. Even I was yawning during the encore, amazing as it was. Apart from the great music, my next favorite thing about watching the concert is how easy it was to get a cab home. The great thing about watching a concert with a crowd of middle-aged to senior folks is that they brought their cars and chauffeurs, so yay, more cabs for us!