Steve Miller Band
May 26 2008
Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre


On Memorial Day 2008, I went to see the Steve Miller Band at the new Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, my second trip to this great new venue. I was incredibly glad to be going, too. I needed something to get my mind off of finals, and what better way to do that than to see the famous Space Cowboy/ Gangster of Love/ Maurice and his band.

So fast forward to Joe Cocker. I was there really early, and you don't want to hear about that because it's boring. While it was still light outside, Joe Cocker and his band took the stage as the opening band. Dressed in all black, Joe Cocker walked out after all his other musicians were already on stage. He kept the crowd excited with his energetic songs and his mannerisms such as constantly moving arms and air-instrument playing. He"d also end most of his songs with a jump that turned out to be more of a slight hop, but he's getting old so I should give him a break. The band played such classics as "You Are So Beautiful", a version of "Come Together" that he recently did for the movie Across The Universe (a movie I highly recommend), "Unchain My Heart", his famous soulful cover of "With A Little Help From My Friends", "Up Where We Belong" and an encore of "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" (another Beatles cover) segueing into "Cry Me A River". Although I do not know much about Joe Cocker, I sure enjoyed his great set, especially the Beatles covers.

Fast forward again to when the sun goes down. It was finally dark and everyone was anticipating a great show to come. I mean how could it not be a great show? It was the Steve Miller Band. They practically owned the charts in the 70"s. It wasn"t long before the lights went out again and this was met with an uproar from the crowd. A droning synth filled the amphitheatre as the band members took the stage, the last of whom being Steve Miller. A curtain behind the band dropped to reveal a multi-color lighted "screen" type of thing as the band ripped into the high energy "Jungle Love", complete with whistles galore- in fact, maybe too many. The song seemed to end as soon as it began with all the excitement behind it. Miller spoke to the crowd for the first time saying, "Good evening. Welcome to Swingtown" before the band played another huge hit of theirs, "Rock"N Me" followed by a well performed "The Stake". After these two songs, Steve spoke to the crowd again and said, "Here"s a little magic for ya."

Steve and his band played his 80"s hit, "Abracadabra" off their album of the same name. It was performed with a slightly revamped guitar solo that I liked a lot better than the studio one. After Steve talked about how they had just come from the cold in the north, and he might have to take some clothes off here, he announced they were going to play my personal favorite Steve Miller song, "Serenade", off of the epitome of Steve Miller Band albums, 1976"s Fly Like An Eagle. The song was performed flawlessly with no harmony out of place. The song that followed brought us back to the huge hits with "Take the Money and Run". The smooth cool organ solo in the middle of the song was great.

Next, Steve announced the band would play "Shubada Du Ma Ma" and the song was played fine except for some technical guitar problems. Steve then said that they were going to "hike over to the blues side of Swingtown" and followed this announcement with "Mercury Blues" which was complemented with three harmonica solos. The words to the chorus weren"t quite the same but I couldn"t really make out all the things that it said, so you"re on your own for that one.

Sonny Charles, the newest member of the band who didn"t do much other than sing harmonies and dance, was introduced by Steve, next. Sonny proceeded to sing five songs. I normally like the blues, but I just really couldn"t get into the guy"s voice. The songs he sang were: "No More Doggin"" by Roscoe Jenkins, "Pretty Thing" by Willie Dixon, a song called something along the lines of "ooh boo ba doo", "I Can"t Be Satisfied" by Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters (which had a great guitar solo by Steve), and "Stormy Monday", one I actually could get in to.

After the blues set, Steve got another guitar and started to show it off. This might be a bit hard to explain, but I"ll go for it. It was a purple alligator-skin-like painted guitar with 19 strings. The usual six were below thirteen extremely high pitched strings. He explained that he got it as a mere lad in New York after being on TV with The Supremes. He went to a guitar shop with the $125 he earned but everything was too expensive. However, he saw a bucket with the words "Your Choice: $125" written on it, and he pulled out this guitar. Many years later, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame offered to buy it from him for some ridiculously large sum of money, but he denied them. Steve then put those high strings to use in "Wild Mountain Honey", one of the more famous songs off of Fly Like An Eagle.

After "Wild Mountain Honey", Steve pulled out a guitar that is definitely the coolest guitar ever invented. He pulled out the Gibson model popularized by the great Jimmy Page, the EDS-1275. Many know it, though, as the Doubleneck SG. Humorously, Miller told the audience that Norton Buffalo would sing the next song, and told us to try not to be distracted by the guitar. The band played the intro to "The Window", but quickly went into "Winter Time" instead. Norton sang it well, and played his harmonica brilliantly too. However, I really would have liked to hear "The Window". Then, after the band ended "Winter Time" with the "The Window" riff, Steve started to sing the words that everyone sang along to immediately, "My grandpa he"s 95…" and you know the rest. "Dance, Dance, Dance" was played through and before you knew it the stage went dark again.

The famous "Space Intro" blared through the speakers in all its trippy glory. It wasn"t long before the inevitable next song followed, Steve"s greatest hit - "Fly Like An Eagle". This was not your ordinary "Fly Like An Eagle", though, it was amazing. A psychedelic background on the "screen" enhanced a jammed out version of the song that had to have been more than 10 minutes. The guitar solo was brilliant and flawless, and the keyboardist even came down and rapped a little. For some reason this didn"t bother me, either, and it seemed to fit the jammed out version. After this work of art, the band played their last song of the main set. All of a sudden, without the warning of "Threshold", the band went right into the song that follows, "Jet Airliner". It was a fitting end to the main set and left the crowd excited.

Luckily, it wasn't long before the band came out again. The drummer began to bang out the famous beat of "Swingtown" and the band followed through with it. All the harmonies were in the right place and it was great. This was then followed by a close competitor to "Fly Like An Eagle' as Steve's greatest hit, "The Joker". This fitting end to the show was performed happily by the band, all smiles by then. During each chorus Steve would wave goodbye to the crowd. Then, before we knew it, the band took a final bow and left the stage. We had to leave Swingtown and head back to our homes, but it was an experience no one would soon forget. -JJ