"...and my soul began to rise
And pretty soon
My heart was singing..."
When Bob Seger comes to town to play his music, the unwritten rule, as it should be for any rock and roll concert, but one which is an absolutely necessity for a Seger show, is check your age at the door.
Seger has been rocking since the '60s (the decade, not his age) so obviously, there were a fair amount of music fans in attendance at his Houston show at the Toyota Center who shared the same demographic as the 69-year-old legendary Michigan rocker. You could see them squinting through their prescription glasses or drugstore chain cheaters at their tickets as they clumsily searched for their seats. It would've been easy to dismiss or mock these fans, or even this segment of the population with a superficial and snarky “50 Shades of Grey” joke at their expense. However, if you passed your time before the show taking lazy cheap shots like this, then you were at the wrong show and at the wrong place and time in your life for Bob Seger and his music, at least for now.
Give it a little time, and you’ll find twenty years will sneak up on you faster than you could ever imagine, and you’ll sit back and you’ll wonder where those twenty years have gone, and you won’t know, but you’ll be in the right time and place for Bob Seger’s music to speak to you, and you’ll listen.
“Twenty years now Where'd they go? Twenty years I don’t know I sit and I wonder sometimes Where they've gone...”
A closer, more introspective reading of the audience demographics at the Houston show through your own age-induced corrective eye wear would've revealed a wider spectrum of ages from teens to twenty to fifty somethings, middle-agers, (whatever that means these days) and those in that void between the former and those legally designated as seniors. Regardless of age, the Houston audience seemed eager to adhere to the aforementioned unwritten rule, because rock and roll, Seger’s music in particular, is the great equalizer. It doesn't judge, and in the words of the man himself, it never forgets.
Seger has always had that cross-generational appeal which isn't easy to achieve and maintain for a span of forty years. It’s not something that you luck into either. It’s earned from writing and performing a prolific body of songs which tell stories that speak universal truth to the struggles and challenges and emotional defeats and victories experienced by anyone who has to work for a living and work to live. His music is just as honest and relevant today as it was forty years ago. It often takes a look back, re-examining conflicts and choices, crossroads reached, and rites of passage traversed.
Seger is the preeminent reflector and reconciler of time passed and decisions made, right, wrong or somewhere in that grey area in the middle.
“Another day come to an end Another day just ends…”
His songs have the power to trigger the weep reflex in even the strongest of men. His music often reminds you, that no matter how tough you think you are, time can still kick your butt, and it has no qualms or remorse about ambushing you when you’re not looking. However, Seger’s songs don’t wallow in misery and defeat. Like life, his music puts the cards on the table and tells you it’s your move, but it doesn't leave you to go it alone. Seger’s music is fueled by the rehabilitative and elevating power of rock and roll to move you physically and emotionally. It celebrates what’s right in the world and looks ahead to where you can go from here, or at the very least, it provides a vehicle to maneuver over the bumps in the road that line your path.
“…And the years rolled slowly past And I found myself alone Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends I found myself further and further from my home…”
This has been the core of what Bob Seger’s music has meant to his fans and the history of rock and roll for four decades, and this is what Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band brought to Houston as they rolled into town on their 2015 Ride Out Tour.
The night began with the opening act Heartless Bastards from Austin, Texas who gave Houston a captivating musical set fueled by primal emotion and sincerity and driven by raw guitar licks that can get under your skin and touch a nerve, in the good way only pure rock and roll can. You can only hope that being part of this leg of Seger’s Ride Out Tour will bring the band to the attention of a wider audience.
The evening launched into full gear with the guitar intro from John Fogerty’s “Old Man Down the Road” playing Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band onto the stage. This self-aware and self-deprecating musical nod made it clear from the onset, there wasn't going to be any denial or pretending by Bob Seger (grey-haired, and wearing corrective eye wear of his own) or The Silver Bullet Band. They are comfortable enough with who they are and where they are at to wear their time served in rock and roll and in life as a badge of honor.
Seger and the band kicked off the show with “Roll Me Away,” the perfect selection from his vast body of work to captivate and uplift the audience from the first song to the last note of the night. You could feel the collective hearts singing and souls rising, and you could see it sweep across the arena as Seger fans of all ages rose to their feet. It was a physical and visible manifestation of hearts singing and souls rising in unison. Seger and the band built on this momentum and added to it throughout the evening, interspersing the main set with his most identifiable and cherished classic songs from the last four decades, cover tunes, and songs from the current “Ride Out” album with a slight, but welcome overlap between them all.
If you came to see Seger live to hear some new original music from the “Ride Out” album, then you got a small taste with “Hey Gypsy,” Seger’s tribute to his late Texas guitar hero Stevie Ray Vaughan and “The Fireman’s Talking,” a tribute to Seger’s brother-in-law, a fireman in Phoenix, who Seger described as “a good man who rescues people.” What more do you need on your resume than an endorsement like that?
If you came to the concert to hear Seger cover some of his favorite tunes by other musicians, you were treated to “an old Memphis song” (a familiar callback to his 1981 “Nine Tonight” live album), "Trying to Live My Life Without You," by Otis Clay, the Willie Mitchell and Earl Randle soul classic "Come to Poppa," the Steve Earle alternative country tune "Devil’s Right Hand," and Wilco and Billy Bragg’s interpretation of Woody Guthrie’s never recorded "California Stars." It’s a song Seger said he heard and just knew he had to record a version of his own.
If you came to the show to hear your favorite classic Seger tunes, you weren't disappointed. Seger and The Silver Bullet Band gave Houston just about every classic song that they could hope to hear, including "Mainstreet" and "Turn the Page," featuring the instantly recognizable saxophone signature of legendary Silver Bullet Band veteran Alto Reed. Seger and the band also played the ubiquitous "Old Time Rock and Roll," Seger’s first hit single, "Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man" from the late ‘60s, the classic radio staple two for one package deal "Traveling Man"/"Beautiful Loser," from his first hit album, 1975’s "Live Bullet," and by Seger’s own admission, his mom’s favorite, song, "We've Got Tonight," which he told the Toyota Center crowd was a good enough reason for him to include it in the set.
Seger ended the main set with John Hiatt’s "Detroit Made," from the "Ride Out" album, but Houston wasn't ready to say goodbye. There were a few more well-known classic Seger tunes they’d come to hear and they weren't going to leave until they heard them. The Houston audience made some noise, clapping, chanting, and shouting out the titles of some of those songs missing from the main set.
Seger and The Silver Bullet Band graciously returned to the stage and gave the fans what they wanted. They played the weep reflex-inducing favorite glance back at a life lived, “Against the Wind" and followed with “Hollywood Nights” and its highs and lows of chasing the mirage of romance only to have it disappear before your eyes but linger in your memory and your heart.
Seger and the band left the stage again, but he wasn't quite through. He had a couple more tunes in him that he owed himself and his fans because they are songs that are the foundation of who he is and what he means to his core audience. This couldn't have been more apparent than when the Toyota Center crowd joined in, accompanying him word for word on what might be his most emotionally identifiable tune, "Night Moves."
"Night Moves" isn't just a song about youthful romance. It’s a song poignant and significant to the teenage fan anticipating that universal rite of passage of the loss of innocence looming on the horizon and the anxious contemplation of everything that will follow and change. However, “Night Moves” also speaks to the more mature, experienced adult in the audience whose been there and done that. It offers a chance to relive that youthful, carefree leap from so many years ago and recapture how afraid, excited, anxious, but more importantly alive it made you feel at the time. It forces you to reassess the moment from an older, wiser perspective and lets you hold onto it and never let it go. “Night Moves,” like so many of Seger’s songs, bridges that gap and corrects the disconnect between the innocent naiveté of youth and the experienced, jaded perceptions of adult hindsight. It’s this aspect of Bob Seger’s music which explains his enduring cross-generational appeal and gives credence to his continuing musical assertion that rock and roll never forgets.
Seger closed the final encore and the show appropriately with “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” with its musical invitation to “Come back baby…” and a promise that his music and rock and roll will always be there to help you remember what you never want to forget.
The Silver Bullet Band is made up of Chris Campbell on bass, Alto Reed on saxophone, Craig Frost on keyboards, Don Brewer (formerly of Grand Funk Railroad) on drums, Rob McNelly on lead guitar, Jim “Moose” Brown on rhythm guitar and keyboards, backup singers Shaun Murphy, Laura Creamer, and Barbara Payton, Keith Kaminski on saxophone, Bob Jenson on trumpet, Mark Myerly on trumpet, John Rutherford on trombone and Deanie Richardson on fiddle and mandolin.
Click here to see the set list for Seger’s Houston show.
For more information about Bob Seger, his “Ride Out” album, current tour information, and his music visit his website.
A special thank you to Stefani Olds and Punch Enterprises Inc., for the ticket to the Houston concert at the Toyota Center.