If a concert can be measured by how quickly a seated audience rises as one to dance, at the O2 Arena on Saturday night, The Doobie Brothers left things a little late. The crowd that more-or-less filled the venue’s lower bowl – the top deck was curtained off – responded with only warm applause to the first dozen songs of a 19-song set. But as keyboardist and co-vocalist Michael McDonald struck up What A Fool Believes, a US number one in 1979, the atmosphere changed in an instant. Suddenly, the audience were up and at ’em.
Half an hour later, as the eight-piece band closed their account with Takin’ It to the Streets and Listen to the Music, in section 112, I even detected the distinctive aroma of marijuana. The scene may not have rivalled the days in the early 1970s when The Doobie Brothers were beloved of North Californian chapters of the Hells Angels, but at least they can still inspire a little bit of misbehaviour.
The Doobie Brothers at the O2 – James Trocchio
Melding hard-rock riffs, Latin rhythms, blue-eyed soul, and the musicianship of a great jam-band, their music defies categorisation. For this final date on the Doobie Brothers’ UK tour, even the visuals were rather odd: a static stage backdrop featuring trees and fields and mountains made them look as though there were performing in front of a box containing the world’s biggest jigsaw puzzle. The production, with its minimalist lighting rig, was easily the sparsest I’ve ever seen at the O2.
Nevertheless, the songs filled the room with unerring ease. As befits a group bearing two members who look like wizards, when it comes to superlative musical alchemy, the Doobie Brothers are in a league with Steely Dan, Little Feat and The Allman Brothers Band. Somehow, they manage to combine three lead guitarists and four lead vocalists without once stepping on one another’s toes. They can sing five-part harmonies. Watching in wonder as they swerved from Bossa Nova (Dependin’ on You) to American roots rock (Rockin’ Down the Highway) to light jazz (a tastefully stripped-down version of Amazing Grace), I could only marvel at the virtuosity of it all.
While the music did the talking, between songs, the group’s rapport with the room stuttered like a nervous teenager on a first date. Time and again, the audience at the O2 were told how much their attendance was appreciated and how, you know, amazing it was for the band to be playing in London once more. For an outfit that has been performing live, off and on, for more than half a century, the almost total absence of quality chat was so inexplicable as to be strangely charming.
As the night entered its final throw, however, The Doobie Brothers at last found their speaking voice. In a summer during which British audiences have already seen Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and Green Day all publicly address the goings on in the United States, Patrick Simmons, one of the band’s founding members, spoke of his pleasure that the international tour “had got us the hell out of” America. “We believe in inclusivity, we believe in NATO, we believe in all of that stuff,” he said. Faint though it may have been, for a moment at least, “the Doobies” showed just a glimpse of their old edge. Evidently, there’s life in the old gods yet.