I remember it well, despite the alcoholic haze. I was in college, many many years ago and I was at a party. More than half the keg into the evening this song came drifiting through the party and before it was over, everybody was shouting
I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and french-fried potatoes, a big kosher pickle and cold draft beer, well good God almighty which way to I steer
And thus I was introduced to Jimmy Buffett and The Coral Reefer Band, the biggest bar band in history.
Lo, these thirty years later, Jimmy still packs the house and it is one of the best and most enjoyable concerts you can attend. Seems that in the fall of '04 he finished his usual summer tour in Fenway Park in Boston, did some skit about removing the Curse of The Bambino and the Red Socks one the World Series. How's that for an accomplishment for some guy that just makes good party music?
Buffett's recordings, particularly in the early years are good, but the quintessential Buffett experience is a concert. It's less about the music than it is the experience. The recording and accompanying DVD of that fated Fenway concert "Jimmy Buffett, Live At Fenway Park" captures that very well.
To be frank, the CD is not all that good. It suffers from mediocre engineering. Excessive applause breaks, or silent periods while something is going on on-stage, and the musical performance is not always that good. If I want to hear Buffett music, I'll get out his studio albums.
But the DVD makes up for everything. With that you experience the magic of a Buffett concert. The DVD concentrates, rightly, on what makes it so fun, the crowd. Yeah, you see the band on stage, and you hear the music, but you mostly see the crowd, see what fun they are having, and if you have a few friends over with a case, you can just join right in.
Article comments
1 - Ken Edwards
Wasn't this the concert that killed the grass at Fenway this year?
I remember going to a Buffett concert at Jacobs Field and that grass was in bad shape the rest of the season (they didn't replace it like at Fenway).
Or was it the Stones this year that tore up Fenway, I can't remember.
2 - eric
I think the album suffers not from medicre production, but ny the simple fact that Buffet is a mediocre musician that was lucky enough to hit a specific demographic and make a living doing what he loves.
two words - Buffet Blows
3 - Mike
Buffet blows?
You're kidding right?
You don't gain the overwhelming success that Jimmy Buffett has earned and survive in a cut-throat music industry for over thirty years. It just doesn't happen.
Jimmy Buffett has been hailed as one of the greatest songwriters of our time. And deservingly so. Perhaps you've only been exposed to the mainstream party anthems he is best known for. That's unfortunate. If you ever really take time to hear some of this legendary preformers work over the years: you'll be hooked.
Two words: Buffett rules