Poconut

Anybody on this board going to this concert? Candy and I will be there. We have seats in the "non-dining" section.

The venue is just up the road a few miles from where we used to live in Naples (Carlton Lakes subdivision), but it wasn't there when we were (2004 - 2006). Looking forward to checking it out and seeing our favorite band perform there.

Tim

Have a great time - looking forward to reading your comments.

Well, it is going to be an interesting bill. The opening act is The Moots (80's funk/soul/pop), comprised of two guys: a drummer and a singer/organist/synthesizer player.

We're gonna hear songs from two very different musical genres on Sunday night.

Good News: Big article and photo about Poco and this concert in today's Naples Daily News weekend entertainment section.

Bad News: The photo includes Rusty, Jack, Michael Webb and George Lawrence. No Lex, no Rick. But they're mentioned in the body of the article.

Well, it was a fun night in Bonita Springs at the SW Florida Events Center.

The Moots, a drummer and a keyboard/synthesizer player and singer, opened the show. They cover 80s funk, soul and pop tunes. They have a standing gig in Ft. Myers at a bar where they engage the audience in sing-alongs, music trivia, etc. Sounds like fun, and I bet the audience has a great time.

But in a concert venue, they couldn't do that stuff. So a lot of their strengths were sidelined. And while the music was fine, it needed more depth. No horns and no bass on Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" is like hearing Poco play "Kind Woman" without a pedal steel guitar and three-part harmony: key elements of the song are missing.

But, all in all, they were OK.

Poco opened with a medley: All Fired Up/Pickin' Up the Pieces/A Child's Claim to Fame/Grand Junction. They sounded great, tighter than when I heard them in Kent, OH last September. Lex threw in some mandolin, fiddle and vocal harmonies that were spot on. And having 4 voices in the vocal mix again (as when Richie, Tim, George and Paul were singing back in the day) is one of the biggest assets of this version of the band.

From here, it was on to Call It Love, followed by Indian Summer. Jack took lead vocals on Paul's songs. (The other was Magnolia, which opened the second set.) His voice, of the four, certainly is the best suited to the two PC-sung songs we heard.

Then Rusty dove into his solo album. We got My Friend and Hey There, with minimal instrumental backing: brushes on the drums and cymbals from Rick; quiet, simple bass support from Jack, a bit of fiddle from Lex.

Then they took a 15 minute break so the venue, a dinner-theater, could sell more drinks and food.

Magnolia, as mentioned above, opened the second set. It sounded fine to us (Candy and I were just left of center, near the back of the place), but I think Rusty was not happy with some of the hardware/sound support from the venue because he launched into stories to allow the stage hands to do their thing.

First, we got the "Joe Walsh gives Richie Furay a guitar lesson" story before Rose of Cimarron. ROC was much like the album version in its instrumentation and vocal arrangements, although Rusty opened last night with the first verse as opposed to the chorus.

Something must have still been wrong (or maybe he just was in a story-telling mood), because then we got the "An ROC cover by Hauffman and Hauffman, the Simon and Garfunkel of Germany, that hit #1 on the pop charts there is not a tale of the Old American West, but a story of a WWII Luftwaffe pilot who dies while mourning his lost love" story, immediately followed by the "I finally Got Peter Frampton's Hair" story, immediately followed by the "We cashed in N.Young's unused Buffalo Springfield airline tickets to pay for rehearsal space in Poco's early days" story.

Then we got Neil Young is Not My Brother. Rusty did his best Neil Young impression (which, to be honest, ain't half bad) at several spots in the song, drawing some chuckles from the crowd.

From there, it was Kind Woman, then Crazy Love.

Unfortunately, that was all we got to hear. Candy had an early dental appointment today (Monday, Jan. 13) and we were facing a 2.5 hour drive home, so we cut out about 9:40 pm. I would guess they played until 10 pm or so as the crowd hadn't yet heard A Good Feeling to Know, Legend, Heart of the Night, Keep on Tryin' and Spellbound, among others, which were played late in the set at the Kent, Ohio show. They did announce they would stay and sign autographs, so it probably was a late night for the guys.

FYI, there is a price hike on caps for 2020: $25, up from $20. Didn't check to see what CD's and tees were selling for this year. Sorry.

All in all, a fun night for Candy and me. And there was superb musicianship, as always, at this Poco show. Hope they get some gigs nearer us later this year so we can stick around for the whole show.

Thanks for the review. If I had to cut out before the end I would have been thinking less talk, more music.

Jiff wrote:Thanks for the review. If I had to cut out before the end I would have been thinking less talk, more music.

I didn't mind the stories. And I don't blame them for the lengthy time of show.

The venue, I'm sure, mandated the 15 minute mid-set break. Also, we knew when we purchased the tickets that there was a good chance we would have to exit early.

The first set went 8 - 8:45 pm. If the second set went until 10 pm, including the encore , patrons got a 1.75 hour show, of which 10 -12 minutes were stories. That's not bad.