exploremusic

Yesterday was a miserable day in Toronto. It was cool and it was raining almost the entire day. The bright thing to look forward to was the Jimmy Buffet concert down at the Air Canada Centre.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no “Parrothead” (what Buffet fans call themselves), but I like the idea of any musician who writes about drinking beer, sitting on the beach, and lazing around. His music, I should point out, is not for everyone. It’s a blend of country, rock, and, um, Caribbean.

In fact, this guy has made a career of lazing around. Besides being a musician for the better part of 40 years, he’s opened up restaurants, he owns a brewery (land shark, delicious), and he’s set to introduce his own rum. He just likes to have a good time in the sun. Who can blame him?

So last night’s show was typical of a Jimmy Buffet show, except that it was indoors. I gotta be honest with you, Jimmy Buffet needs to be seen frolicking in the outdoors. I saw him a few years back at the Molson Amphitheatre here in Toronto and it was insanely fun.

Anyway, back to last night…. The ACC, though not packed, was filled with enthused fans. There were men dressed in hula skirts, people walking around with stuff parrots on their head and it was like I was on some Caribbean island, in general a party atmosphere.

My buds and I (all buffet virgins, aside from yours truly) were just in awe of all the craziness of the crowd. Its rare that you can be at a concert with such a crazy age range, from college kids to the retired white haired crowd…. All giving Buffet their undivided attention.

By the way, Buffet has some Canadian roots, with a grand-dad who grew up in Newfoundland. He worked Canadian references and Toronto ones into lyrics and crowd banter the whole night, and while not my thing (I just want the dude to play his tunes), I think the crowd felt it was really genuine and in some ways it really connected the crowd to him.

The set list itself was comprised of Buffet classics like Cheeseburger in Paradise, Margaritaville, Fins, Changes in Latitudes-Changes in Attitudes, with a few new tunes (that didn’t grab the audience’s attention per say) and a few covers which had everyone giddy with excitement including a take on the Alan Jackson tune (Jackson seemingly wrote about Buffet and his ilk) It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere. For me, hearing Buffet’s take on the CSN classic Southern Cross was really refreshing. That’s a very underrated song to begin with, and Buffet’s take was spot on. You can find the full set list here.

By the way, Jimmy’s band is pretty raucous. I suspect any time you include steel drums, latin percussion, pedal steel, and a rock band with two fantastic female back up vocalists and a trumpet player you’re in for a good time.

After his last tune, “He went to Paris”, Jimmy vowed to be back in the summer, and I for one will be glad to see him again