As I mentioned in my last post, I went to see Jimmy Buffett tonight at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA. I learned last week that Toots and the Maytals would be opening for him. Susan and I decided we’d tailgate and make a whole afternoon/evening/night of it. We made burgers to bring with us, along with our grill and I brought some of the Flying Dog beer I bought yesterday. I’ll start with the beer because that’s how the night started…
I brought 4 of the Flying Dogs I bought yesterday - In Heat Wheat, Woody Creek White, Oh Scratch Lager, and Snake Dog IPA. That’s also the order I drank them tonight so that I could enjoy the flavors of each one. Normally, I’m not a big fan of wheat beers, any wheat beer. So the fact that I actually bought 2 is pretty amazing. The In Heat Wheat is a hefeweizen. It’s not as dry as most wheat beers, which is nice. It made for a great easy drinking summer beer. As I wasn’t really drinking for taste, that’s really all I can say about it. I will add that I do plan on buying more in the future. I really liked this one. The same can be said for the Woody Creek Wit. It has that normal Belgian white ale flavor, but isn’t dry tasting like Hoegaarden (which I don’t consider a great beer by any means). This one reminded me of Victory’s Whirlwind Wit, another good Belgian style white ale. Next I had the Oh Scratch Lager. I liked this the least of the 4. Again, because I didn’t sit and savor it, I can’t really say much else, though I don’t plan on buying this one again. Finally, I had the Snake Dog IPA. I’m a hophead and love IPA’s. This one was basically your average IPA, along the lines of a Harpoon IPA. It’s just a good solid session IPA. After that, we went into the stadium where I got a Land Shark Lager. It was kind of like Bud, but tasted better. For a macro lager, I do like Narragansett better. Of course, after the IPA, it tasted like water. On to the music…
As I said, Toots and the Maytals opened. I love reggae and ska and this was what they played. I don’t know any of their songs, so I can’t really say much more than that they were awesome. It was a shame that the place was mostly empty for their set because they rocked. The only song I recognized was “Take Me Home Country Roads”, the John Denver song. It was excellent. If you get the chance to see these guys, they are the originals and just completely rock, mixing up the ska and reggae beats with some blues and soul. Jimmy introduced them, which was pretty classy I thought.
When Jimmy Buffett took the stage, the place went nuts. He started with a few songs I didn’t recognize, but played all his hits and a few covers as well. In a review of the show he did last weekend at Gillette, the Providence Journal wondered why he even bothered with the cover tunes. He’s got a huge repertoire of his own that he could have chosen from, most of it songs that people know. Anyways, the covers he played were (in no particular order as I don’t remember the exact order) “Brown Eyed Girl” (Van Morrison), “Scarlet Begonias” (Grateful Dead), “Glory Days” (Bruce Springsteen), “Another Saturday Night” (Sam Cooke), “On the Road Again” (Willie Nelson, this was the opener), and “Southern Cross” (Stephen Stills, CSN). There might’ve been some others, but if there were, I didn’t recognize them. The standouts, aside from the covers as they were all excellent, especially “Scarlet Begonias,” “Glory Days,” and “Southern Cross,” were “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” “One Particular Harbor,” “A Pirate Looks at 40,” “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” “Margaritaville” (of course), “Come Monday,” and “Boat Drinks” (which he did solo acoustic). One thing I didn’t realize was that on keys was Bill Payne from Little Feat. He was introduced right before “Scarlet Begonias” when Jimmy called New Englanders a cross between Deadheads and Parrotheads. He had us marked (or at least me). Now I knew he had covered both “Scarlet Begonias” and “Uncle John’s Band” on 2 different albums, but I wasn’t sure which one he would play when he said that. I was happy it was Scarlet as that’s one of my favorite Dead tunes. The only other thing I should mention is that before he played “Boat Drinks”, he did a little talk about how he wrote it in Boston while drinking and watching hockey and hanging out with former Boston Bruin Derek Sanderson. He also showed a lot of videos of the fans from the lots and in the audience on the screens next to the stage. The one notable thing about that was the number of girls showing their breasts. I was kind of shocked that he kept showing that footage with the number of children in the audience, but I guess you learn about it somehow…
All in all, it was a great night of music, beer, and fun. I really miss going to concerts and this is the reason. The crowd reminded me of the Phish crowds before they went on their first hiatus. It was just a bunch of people looking to have fun and enjoy the music. Getting out was kind of bitch, but with 57,000 people trying to leave the stadium at the same time, it moved more smoothly than you would think. Time for me to get some sleep.
Recent Comments