Harrah's Rincon, Valley Center, CA, 19 Jun 2011

[Bud]

Not sure when this first showed up, but it's currently listed on both the official site and Harrah's page. A rehearsal for Montreal, perhaps?

http://www.dianakrall.com/tour.aspx
http://www.harrahsrincon.com/EventsDeta ... iana+Krall

[mapache61]

I'll be at this gig. Looking forward to it. And hoping for another Southern California date. Or maybe Vegas?

[mapache61]

Here's the set list. As always, very difficult to keep track.

1. I Love Being Here With You
2. So Nice
3. Father's Day (Groucho Marx song)
4. Exactly Like You
5. Deed I Do
6. Walk On By
7. Quiet Nights
8. Jockey Full of Bourbon (Tom Waits song)
9. A Case of You
10. Abandoned Masquerade
11. Cheek to Cheek
--ENCORE--
12. Frim Fram Sauce

Piano/vocals: Diana Krall
Guitar: Anthony Wilson
Bass: Robert Hurst
Drums: Karriem Riggins

See my review below:

[mapache61]

Happy to report Diana and the band were in fine form Sunday night at Harrah’s Rincon. The mood on stage was very loose, playful and laid-back. Definitely one of the groovier DK shows I’ve seen.

So what about this Harrah’s Rincon? The high-rise hotel sits on an Indian reservation out in the rolling hills of rural northeast San Diego County. As for other buildings and development, there’s little else around it. The hotel’s Open Sky Theatre (capacity: 2,500) is basically a big stage set up in a parking lot. The mountains serve as backdrop. The seats are portable, which usually means terribly uncomfortable folding chairs. Not these. They were big, extra-wide, high-back beauties with lots of leg room between the rows. Nice! $145 per seat nice? Not quite. But DK would make it all worth it.

While I’m talking prices, allow me to gripe about Harrah’s extortionate room rates for this evening. They took the DK concert and Father’s Day Sunday, and used them to justify raping everyone. My standard room cost…(wait for it)…$260! Ouch! A week before the show I checked the rates again to see if they’d come down. Nope. The rate had jumped to $300, plus tax. Unreal. But what can you do? The nearest hotel is 15 miles away on windy mountain roads.

Mrs. Mapache61 and I check in around 3pm and head up to our room on the 17th floor. Through the window, at an angle, I can see the concert stage far below. An hour later, I spy the band on stage doing a sound check. We head downstairs to hang around outside the venue’s gates and listen. The fence is chain-link, draped with a tarp that you can see-through a little bit. Diana comes out on stage, and we do a little parking lot swing dancing as she and the boys run through shortened versions of “How Deep is the Ocean” and “So Nice.” So nice, indeed. Diana splits and we hang around a few more minutes in case the band plans to jam a little more.

At this point we notice a woman walking toward the backstage gate with a Diana CD and felt pen in hand. She stands there, looking creepy, as Anthony walks out into the parking lot. And then we realize, “This woman thinks Diana is coming out next. I bet she’s right.” She sure is. Only Diana doesn’t hike through parking lots, kicking rocks like Mr. Wilson. No sir. She travels the 300 yards between the venue and the hotel in a Lincoln town car with heavily tinted windows. I suppose we can sprint to the hotel lobby and intercept her. But I already did the awkward “Hi Diana, I’m a big fan” thing in San Diego in 2009. I don’t need to do it again.

At 8pm, the sun has just set, the sky has that magic twilight glow, I’ve got two frosty beers in hand, and we’re in perfect seats: 4th Row, Dead Center. Scanning the crowd, my guess is the venue is about 3/4 full. The floor seats are sold out, but there are sizeable empty spaces in the general admission grandstands along the sides.

Diana hits the stage around 8:15, and we’re off. As always, “I Love Being Here With You” gets the ball rolling. Diana—dressed in a long black leather coat, red scarf, black leggings and boots—looks and sounds great. Our fearless Message Board Leader, Bud, has mentioned in his fairly recent concert reviews that Diana’s voice has been a little off due to lingering colds. Some buffoonish blogger’s review of the recent New Jersey concert, I believe, claims her voice was way off and she was sometimes short of breath. Maybe so. I wasn’t there. But I can assure you on this night her voice sounds top notch.

On this first number, we get a nice, action-packed drum solo from Karriem Riggins. I dig this cat’s style. It’s more laid-back than Jeff Hamilton’s. I’m not saying it’s better. It just brings a different, groove-a-licious dynamic to the band. Up next is “So Nice.” Diana sounds great on this, and her piano playing (including some wonderful solos) is stellar as always.

This being Father’s Day, DK springs a fun surprise on us. She talks about Elvis, her boys and her own father a bit, and then plays the old Groucho Marx “Father’s Day” song. Sample lyric: “According to our mother, you’re our father, and that’s good enough for us.” This gets a good laugh from the crowd. And next we’re into a swingin’ “Exactly Like You.” Anthony Wilson (guitar) and Robert Hurst (bass) play some nice solos on this tune.

An amazing piano intro carries the band into a jumpin’ “Deed I Do.” Next up is the highlight of the night for me: a new, faster, up-tempo arrangement of “Walk on By.” Judging by the big applause, whoops and whistles, this is definitely a crowd pleaser. It’s funny. Hearing it for the first time on the album, I never imagined it would be.

Next we hear a silky-smooth “Quiet Nights,” followed by the funky Tom Waits tune “Jockey Full of Bourbon.” Then DK switches gears again and plays “A Case of You.” Emotional, as always, and somewhere in the middle of it all, on piano, she sneaks in the melody of Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate.” Very cool.

“Doin’ Alright” gets things moving again. And then, TGITOR fans will be thrilled to hear “Abandoned Masquerade” is back. Even better, she changes-up the lyrics of the last verse. I can’t remember exactly what the new lyrics were, but the lines about “despair” and the “empty chair” (obviously about her mother) were gone. Interesting.

***EDIT: Mrs Mapache informs me that I'm incorrect. Diana did indeed sing the last verse. The new lyrics/verse came afterward.***

“Cheek to Cheek” boogies, and closes out the main set. The crowd is on its feet, going wild, and would not sit for the encore. Diana and company stride back out. She sits at the piano, and the crowd shouts requests: “Look of Love!” “Peel Me a Grape! Please!” Some guy in the audience bellows something inaudible, and Diana shoots back, “Do you yell at your lover like that? Be careful or I’ll play more Groucho Marx songs.” The crowd laughs. Diana launches into “Frim Fram Sauce.” The band looks like they’re having a ball. The first ten rows or so are up out of their seats and swing dancing in the aisles.

Good times. A great show. My only complaint (one I’ve had for several years now) is that Diana’s concerts are much too short these days. At this concert, I don’t count Groucho’s “Father’s Day” as a full song. That means we got 11 tunes, which translates to about 1 hour and 20 minutes of music. When there’s no opening act, I think it’s fairly reasonable to expect 13 to 14 numbers. But then again, Diana doesn’t owe me anything. She’s playing 11 songs; take it or leave it. I’ll take it.

See you again somewhere down the road, DK....

[scielle]

Thanks for taking the time to type out a War and Peace-sized report! Glad you had a good time, and really nice to see Abandoned Masquarade on there!

I was just going to say – and I see you’ve noted it as well, that these set lists are just not long enough. I know the pieces can stretch for a good 10 minutes (which I love, personally, though I know many don’t), but I'm seeing more and more reviews saying she was on stage for just over an hour. I wonder why that is? I mean, Elvis’ shows often run nearly 3 hours. And Diana’s tend to be more expensive, so you would think she’d play for at least 90 minutes or so. Anything else, and I don’t think it’s quite fair to the audience. Especially if the set lists are getting as predictable as that. (I mean, she’s been opening with the same tune for how many years?)
Anyhow, unless the set lists change in a meaningful way, I don’t think I’ll be forking over big money to see the next DK show that comes to town. After a while, it’s sort of same old, been there done that, you know? Bummer.

[mapache61]

War and Peace-length report? Ha! Yeah, it took me longer to write this than it did to experience the actual concert.

I'm with you. I love extended jazz jams. To me, the improv and interplay are what it's all about. I'd dig it if "Exactly Like You" was 20 minutes long, but that's not the case.

Same old, been-there-done-that bummer? I don't fully agree with that. And if you'd been at this concert, I don't think you would either. I've seen Diana in concert many times, heard many of the same songs over and over again, and even at less-than-superior shows (I've seen a handful), she and the band always throw down an extremely high level of musicianship. Simply put, you just want a bit more. I don't know that it needs to be 3-hour Elvis gig, or some 4-hour Grateful Dead marathon, but 2 solid hours would be nice.

[scielle]

Oh I don't disagree - happy to listen to a 20-minute Exactly Like You - I'm a piano player and love the musicianship of the entire band. But I do think she really needs a more varied repertoire and more staying power. Those are not cheap shows, and if I'm paying good money, I'd like to see a proper-length concert, and more than the occasional rarity. There are plenty of great standards she clearly knows and has recorded in the past (granted, not all are "right" for the moment, clearly), so I just don't see why they can't mix it up a little on the song choice.

[Bud]

Thanks for the thorough run down, mapache61!!! One of the best ever. Nice set list, too! Sure hope Father's Day manages to appear on YouTube

Can't believe the ripoff hotel prices. At a casino, no less. But it sounds like you did the right thing by biting the bullet. Maybe it's time to buy stock in Harrah's?

Concert length... I agree that they are getting a little short. The one's I've been to lately have been closer to 1:45 including encores, though. I could understand shorter during the solo concerts, which must be exhausting. But with the full band, you'd expect more.

And I'm glad her voice was doing fine!

[mapache61]

Maybe the show was closer to 1:30, but no longer. I went back and looked up the sets from Vegas and San Diego in 09, and those were 13 songs each.

As for Harrah's, they don't charge those crazy prices at their Vegas and Laughlin properties. Too much competition. At Rincon, there's no other choice. Also, I'm sure they had to pay for the month-long TV advertising blitz they've been doing here in SoCal. Every commercial ended with a "See Diana Krall at Harrah's" tag.

[Bud]

Did Diana mention anything about Paul McCartney?

[Andrea]

Thanks, great review.

I agree about the length of the concerts - 90 min should be a minimum for such a price

[Coda]

Mapache, thanks for the interesting report! Too bad you couldn't see Diana after the sound check...especially since there wasn't a big group of people waiting. But the show sounded great, even if it was short. I think 90 minutes is the absolute minimum, and for price you paid, two hours is probably what I'd expect.