I’ve always wondered why the Waterboys are not regularly mentioned in the same breath as U2, their more successful cohorts in Big Music. Mystic Celtic themes, wide genre experimentation, reckless ambition, and earnestness occasionally lapsing into bathos — it’s all there. Perhaps it’s because founder Mike Scott has been a bit too wide and reckless in ambition and scope. Perhaps it’s because the Waterboys as a cohesive band, has pretty much been just Mike Scott.
I suspect that a less raggle taggle band might have made Scott’s musical forays more cohesive over time. If so, the current lineup, no larger than needs be, tight and effortless enough to riff and be fun, would be a solid contender for posterity. Veteran fiddleman in a low top hat, Steve Wickham, took the stage as Scott’s equal, the latter in Canadian tuxedo and cowboy hat. The complimentary front men were supported by steadfast Zach Ernst on rhythm guitar, and Ralph Salmins on drums, who showed his chops during the second set in a solo tribute to the recently late drum god Ginger Baker. The big sound was rounded out by blistering keysman ‘Brother’ Paul Brown.
We can be grateful the Waterboys are not a bigger act and are still free to fill relatively intimate venues like the Fillmore with waves of sound up close and personal, starting appropriately with the rolling title track from the current release, Where the Action Is. The album is less a return to form, as a welcome integration of the new wave proto-pagan soul of the first three albums, with the rampant experimentation of the previous album Out of All This Blue, and their more unfortunate recent forays into rock, rhythm & blues by way of Austin. They then settled into some familiar territory with a couple solid Celtic folk tracks off 1988’s Fisherman’s Blues, and the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers.” The next two tracks were homage to primary influences. Scott was clearly excited about new single ‘London Mick’, a Replacements style tribute to Clash’s Mick Jones. It was a nicely complimented by ‘A Girl Called Johnny’ the very first song recorded by the Waterboys, and a tribute to Patti Smith that brilliantly held promise of what was to come.
They followed this unblemished block with ‘Still a Freak’ from Modern Blues, which is a song that fully qualifies as Dad rock, with watery blues riffs and embarrassing lyrics assuring us that, though 60 years old, yes Mike is still cool. ‘Nashville Tennessee’ is better but more of the same.
And that pretty much sets the pattern for the night: Solid new material, vibrant first iteration tracks, then unfortunate dad rock, with ‘Rosalind (You Married the Wrong Guy)’ as the standout offender. Miraculously, each and every clunker ascended to a brilliant room-filling jam thanks to that virtuoso fiddle player, and a madman on keys who at varied points stripped off his shirt, and came to center stage looking like RiffRaff wailing on a keytar!
Standouts of the evening were ‘We Will Not Be Lovers’, ‘Morning Came Too Soon’, and ‘Ladbroke Grove Symphony’, a jazzy piece closing the first set with the running rhythm of Nina Simone’s ‘Sinnerman’. The band survived a significant soundboard disruption with grace and humor, and closed the show with cheesy but endearing ‘In My Time On Earth’
The single encore was the Waterboys’ only stateside hit, ‘The Whole of the Moon’ which epitomizes their early sound. Derailed a bit perhaps by the sound malfunction, it wasn’t the strongest rendition. Yet, singing along loud and off-key as can only be done to those recognizable singles, a clump of burly middle-aged Irishmen swayed and danced and bumped into each other and hugged and took embarrassed offense and patted each others backs with forgiveness in big over earnest rapture.
