Wastin' Away on the North Coast  

18     Stars On the Water
This is one of listener Ed’s favorite songs.  The PM band rocked this one out.  But, I will have to say, the best live performance of this song was on ‘Live by the Bay’.  Fingers rocked this one.  If only Josh Leo could be here!  Right before this song started, Fingers was doing a shot of something with either Mac or Peter.  I could not tell.

19     Son of a Son of a Sailor
Jimmy talks about the navy & visiting the troops.  They showed video footage of Jimmy & Mac’s visit to the sailors on the USS Harry S. Truman.  Again, Fingers was just great.

20     Volcano
Fingers was out of control on this one.  He did an outstanding performance.  Having Fingers on stage really had a positive affect on the band.  Every time he was out there, the rest of the band would just turn it up a notch.  He would walk around while playing & just look at another band member & that member just would just pour their heart & soul into that particular song they were playing.

21     Making Music for Money
I will have to say that I did not care for Nadir’s version of this song from the Pine Knob concert.  I always thought that only Jimmy should perform songs from the A1A album.  However, Nadir really belted out the lyrics on this performance.  I think it was because Fingers was also on stage.  Fingers rocked this one.

22     School Boy Heart
Wow!  This was another great performance.  The band was in sync and everyone just rocked on this one!

23     In The City
The vocal harmonies were just fantastic on this one.  This is another example of the band just being in sync tonight.  I liked Mac’s comments about the first time his picture was taken in public after leaving Mississippi.  And I quote “It was the second time a McAnally had his picture taken and there was no bible in one hand & a shotgun in the other”.

24     Pirate Looks at 40
A great live performance with the added treat of Fingers on stage.  I can’t say it enough.  Fingers just made this song extra special.

25     Band Intros
Jimmy talked about the article in the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel on the band.

26     Far Side Of The World
A great performance along with video footage from Jimmy’s trip to Cambodia or Vietnam.

27     Southern Cross
I never get tired of this one.  They always do a great job with this song & having Fingers on stage gives it that extra touch of class.

28     Margaretville
The crowd just went wild during this one!  Fingers was playing on one of Utley’s keyboards during this song and him & Utley were just having a great time.  Jimmy added the lost verse.

29     Fins
Another great Fingers performance.

30     Rainy Day Women
The band just let loose with this one.  It was a great, great performance.  Again, Fingers just rocked!  He poured everything he had into this song.  John Lovell also did a great job on this song.  There was also some strange smell or odor in the air during this song.

31     Distantly In Love
I was very impressed with Jimmy performance on this song.  In the past he always did the acoustical ‘last song’ differently that the original version.  Songs like ‘Stories We Could Tell’, ‘Lovely Cruise’, ‘He Went to Paris’ were always performed differently when Jimmy does these ‘unplugged’ encores.  Jimmy can do what he wants, he owns the songs but, I always thought they should sound like the original.  With ‘Distantly in Love’ it sounded very much like the original version & was just a great performance.

BEST PERFORMANCES
Fingers Taylor               Here Comes Bo Diddley, Rainy Day Women,
                                          Making Music for Money
Mac                                   Ass & the Hole
John Lovell                     Pencil Thin Mustache & Rainy Day Women
Jimmy                             Distantly In Love

BEST SONGS
School Boy Heart
In the City
Here Comes Bo Diddley
Come Monday
Changes In Latitudes

I can say that of all the live Buffet concerts I have been to and seen on DVD, this concert was the best.  Watching Fingers performing on stage was an unforgettable experience.  When I did my review of ‘Live by the Bay’ I mentioned that Jimmy’s old band interacted well with each other and that the PM Band just sort of stayed in their little spot during the concert.  Jimmy was real loose that night and was taking jabs at members of the band and they were starting to loosen up a little.

After Fingers took the stage, everything changed.  It was like he flipped a switch & the rest of the band came alive.  I have never seen the (PM) band interact as well as they did on this night.  Fingers was such a motivating factor in the rest of the band’s performance that night.  Everyone was smiling. Gunthie was smiling & he never smiles. Doyle Grisham was smiling and he rarely smiles.  Jim Mayer who moves around a little during the show was just all over the place this night.

You just had to be there!

Listener Ed

p.s. Tina looked great!