Nov. 4, 1975 review: Bonnie Raitt celebrates the Century's first anniversary

 

Another excursion back into great concerts at the Century Theater.

Nov. 4, 1975 

Prizes at Door, Raitt on Stage for ‘Bonnie’ Good Time 

          Bonnie Raitt helped open the Century Theater in a concert full of extraordinarily good feelings a year ago Oct. 14. Monday night she came back to give Harvey & Corky’s downhome palace a booster shot, with love.

          It was an exuberant sort of belated anniversary party – four bottles of champagne were after-concert door prizes – and Raitt rose beautifully to the occasion, leading a loose and happy masterpiece of a performance that went more than an hour and a half.

          Sitting on a chair, the four guys in her band spread across the stage behind her, she opened with a tune from Jackson Browne, who headlined last year’s premiere.

          “I thought I was a child,” she sang, smooth and sultry, “until you turned and smiled.”

          She strummed a big electric hollow-body Gibson. The music and the joy of the tune were so high it made you giddy.

          The folks onstage were giddy too and there were several things to thank for the band’s “John Prine smiles,” as Raitt called them.

          The clubhouse camaraderie was a by-product of the tour itself – a month on a yellow bus. The fooling about and the sweet elegance of the music was from pre-show celebrating backstage. And Raitt’s own red-haired radiance came straight from the heart. She’s in love.

          “Rolling Stone was along on part of the tour and I didn’t want them taking a picture of my old man, because then all the other girls would be after him. Don’t advertise your man,” she chuckled as a bearded guy appeared in an old man mask after a lazy, jazzy “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy.”

          Her early fascination with Southern blues fired her snappy guitar solos – steel guitar on “Give It Up or Let Me Go.” Her feel for more intimate emotions burned in “My First Night Alone Without You” and “Can’t Find My Way Home.”

          For encores, she gave a final taste of each – a heart-torn new Eric Kaz song, “Blowing Away,” and her old boogieing version of Stephen Stills’ “Bluebird.”

          Her band, including the ever-present Freebo on bass and tuba, was dynamite throughout.

          Raitt’s loveliness more than counterbalanced the near mutiny that greeted the leadoff hour by a scruffy Los Angeles songwriter named Tom Waits.

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Bonnie Raitt on the cover of the Dec. 18, 1975, issue of Rolling Stone.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: I was not the reviewer on Oct. 14, 1974, for the first concert in the Century after Harvey & Corky purchased it. Critic Jim Bisco covered that sell-out show, loved Bonnie Raitt, thought Jackson Browne had “a ring of sameness.”

This time Bonnie was headlining a six-week tour that followed the release of her “Home Plate” album, but setlist.fm has very little data what she played on any of the dates. Indeed, more songs are mentioned in this review than in any of the website’s entries.

Tom Waits apparently had grown accustomed to hostile audiences, having endured them as an opener for Frank Zappa. He was fresh from releasing “Nighthawks at the Diner” and opened on all of Bonnie’s dates this tour. He gets short shrift here, but my review may have been trimmed from the bottom. Here’s his setlist from Oct. 25, opening for her in Arlington, Texas: 

          Spare Parts (A Nocturnal Emission)

          Emotional Weather Report

          Diamonds on My Windshield

          Better Off Without a Wife

          Semi Suite

          Eggs and Sausage

          The Ghosts of Saturday Night

          The Heart of Saturday Night

          Drunk on the Moon

          Ol’ 55

          Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)

          Warm Beer and Cold Women

          Putnam County