Just saw Steely Dan at Wang Theater in Boston yesterday night...

[cmalak]

...fun night. They played the full Aja album (I guess the album came out on Sept 23, 1977, so given ysterday was the 23rd, they commemorated by playing the full album) and then played a bunch of their other hits from various albums. The sound level was way too high for my comfort, and I must say, Don Fagen's vocal range was very diminished (not that he had a huge range to begin with) but they are still great musicians. Horn section and drummer were awesome and lead guitarist John Harrington was superb. Becker just hang back out of the limelight occasionally coming in with some sweet solos but all in all it was a good time. However, Steely Dan has always been the quintessential studio band (always switching up studio musicians on various albums and even within albums) and given their fanatical attention to detail and complex orchestrations/layering of music in the studio, for me, they will always sound better on a decent stereo system than in a live concert.

 

[dlb2]

Glad you had a good time Cyril. I agree with your assessment about their studio fanaticism, but it would have been sweet to hear Aja in it's entirety in concert.

 

[joeinid]

Cyril,

That's awesome!

I love Steely Dan and can only imagine what a treat it was. Glad you had a great time.

 

[Petro85]

...fun night. They played the full Aja album (I guess the album came out on Sept 23, 1977, so given ysterday was the 23rd, they commemorated by playing the full album) and then played a bunch of their other hits from various albums. The sound level was way too high for my comfort, and I must say, Don Fagen's vocal range was very diminished (not that he had a huge range to begin with) but they are still great musicians. Horn section and drummer were awesome and lead guitarist John Harrington was superb. Becker just hang back out of the limelight occasionally coming in with some sweet solos but all in all it was a good time. However, Steely Dan has always been the quintessential studio band (always switching up studio musicians on various albums and even within albums) and given their fanatical attention to detail and complex orchestrations/layering of music in the studio, for me, they will always sound better on a decent stereo system than in a live concert.

That's awesome Cyril I'm a huge fan. I saw them couple months ago in Atlantic city.
And the same type of show you mentioned about 4 years ago in Boston . They did 1 night for each of their top 3 albums and did the whole album in order . The 4th night they took online votes and did what the people voted on to play. I went to the Aja night as it's my favorite.
Always a good time.
I always said they must have been impossible to work with In The studio as everything sounds so perfect. But i think it's really cool that it's pretty much just Donald Fagan and walter Becker and a bunch of different musicians , never really had a "band". Yet still put out some impeccable recordings with some really great songs.
Glad you had fun , probably not too many guys from the 70's that we will get to see anymore!!