Edgar Winter

I forgot to mention it, but about 3 weeks ago I opened up the paper Friday morning and there staring me in the face was a small ad..."Edgar Winter Saturday Night at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts". WHAT?

Not many people know this, but I am a big fan of Edgar's "They Only Come Out At Night" album from the 1970s. It has a couple of excellent well-known songs (Frankenstein and Free Ride) but it also has many great obscure songs.

So I rushed the paper over to my wife and said "we're going to this tomorrow night!" and she smiled. So we did. Now it was a very unusual concert in a very unusual venue. The place is designed with plays and classical music in mind, not necessary rock acts. So the feeling was very...stiff and formal. And the crowd was all 40ish and 50ish couples with a few 40ish to 50ish dads with their sons in tow.

We got seats in the first row of the balcony and had an excellent view of the whole show...there were only about 200 people there by my estimate.

There were no frills. No fog, no backdrop, no colored lights. It was a stage and a few white lights and that was it. It wasn't even that loud in there.

I was a little disappointed in that Edgar mostly played things off his new release, Rebel Road. He played very little of his older stuff, except for the obligatory aforementioned Frankenstein and Free Ride. But seeing him perform Frankenstein was worth the price of admission alone, so if I had to do it over again I surely would.

Edgar wore his traditional long black coat with large metal buttons. But I was in for a few surprises. First, he is now over 60 so his tall lanky body is very stiff...you can see it in every movement. Second, he wore sneakers instead of black boots with a tall heel as I would have expected. And third, Mr. Edgar Winter talks with a Texas accent! All these years and I did not know he lives in Texas. He talked about playing the dive bars in Texas and said he is known as the "Texas Tornado", which he said with a classic Texan drawl.

In any case, a good show. But not a great show. Worth it for Frankenstein alone.