Bo's Flashbacks

Dave Mason

 Live @ The Ford Auditorium 

April 17th 1972

 I eagerly awaited the Dave Mason concert @ Ford Auditorium in ’72. I knew every song on his Alone Together album by heart. It was filled with astonishing rock & roll symphonies of lost love and heartache. It was a breakup album instilled with all the confusing emotions that are tangled up in saying goodbye. It is filled with anger as well as sorrow. There is an unspoken despair in the inevitable split of a relationship with someone that you loved honestly. Mason’s music resonated deeply in me for I was living that sorrow. His lyrics mirrored my unhappiness and quiet resignation. My girlfriend accompanied me to the show but she was cool and distant as if she were longing to be somewhere else. She was not a Dave Mason fan. She made that clear. So I ignored her irritation with me and just concentrated on that glorious music. Mason was in his prime, sleek, slender and handsome. Although soft spoken on the introductions, he sang his ass off with his effortless contralto. His range was a bit limited but his full bodied grainy voice was the perfect accompaniment to his songs.

 He opened with the masterful shuffle blues of Only You Know and I know. It was his most realized composition at the time – great ironic lyrics and a masterful presentation. His voice was perfect!  It was followed by the country rocker Waitin’ on You, another great song even though it faltered on the chorus. The recorded version had Rita Coolidge and Bonnie Bramlet sing the soulful backing and it simply could not be duplicated in the live show

Shouldn’t Took More than You Gave. His wah wah guitar work was extraordinary - economical yet fluid, melodic and powerful. I was having’ the time of my life, listening to my hero with my best girl by my side. And as I sensed her tension, I realized that Mason’s songs were the soundtrack of our impending breakup. Sad and Deep as You followed World in Changes and Can’t Stop Worrying; Can’t Stop Loving. Each song hit me like punch as if Mason was singing about our shared sorrow.

The mood shifted when Mason hit his stride with two of his Traffic masterpieces Pearly Queen and Feeling Alright. I was digging the music without my earlier self-consciousness. He ended with a masterful take on All Along the Watchtower – Hendrix channeling Dylan through Mason

The crisp sweet aroma of marijuana circled the room and tantalized my olfactory glands. It sure smelled good. At about this time my girlfriend lights up – only it’s a cigarette. I wasn’t a smoker but I didn’t mind. I liked it – in a sexy kind of way.  But as I looked around the auditorium, I noticed a mushroom-cloud of sweet Colombian rise from the seated throng and circle around the decorative luster of the arched ceiling. It seemed that everyone in the whole damn auditorium was smoking and passing it around like it was communal love fest. Like a silent phantom, an usher suddenly appeared from the midst of the heavy hemp fog, walked up to my girl and put a hand on her shoulder and barked “Put it out.” Well, she put it out alright and she sent me with it. She was pissed off -to put it lightly. I tried to help her see the humor and the irony – “if only you would have lit up a joint instead.” But she didn’t find it one bit funny, instead she drove to the downtown bus station and told me to find my own way home. We ended our relationship a few months later and Alone Together became my best friend. It got me through, brother…it got me through.

Segue to the Rocking on the Riverfront Concert
July 16th, 2010

Seeing Dave Mason in a recent show in Detroit is like going to my 40th Class Reunion with high expectations yet leaving with a sense of dread and an unsettling realization. I look like them. I’ve grown old like a tattered old coat – and my beloved classmates are no longer the people I remembered

.

Mason, the once serene sex symbol rock star is now a crotchety old fart with a big belly and a bald head. He looks more like a retired beer-swilling assembly line worker who moves to Florida, walks around in baggy shorts, wears a shirt that doesn’t hide his tremendous girth and turns his thermostat up to a constant 80 degrees. I don’t think Rita Coolidge or Bonnie Bramlett would saddle up with him anytime soon… unless they want to do the bump and grind with a big balding Buddha. Get religion.

Dave Mason did not age gracefully but his songs were like a rare vintage wine that gives you a warm comfortable buzz. It felt like that long overdue phone call from an old friend… when the sound of his voice evokes an inward smile that no one else could see. Mason opened with World in Changes an introspective song about longing and discovery from his 1970 masterpiece Alone Together. The guitar work is fluid and the song contains several tempo changes. He followed with Let it Go, Let it Flow, a 1978 hit that has a mellow Southern California charm that sneaks up on you.40,000 Headman, a classic Traffic song from ’68 was a real treat as he Mason was able to recreate the complex textures and time signatures. Great song. He did a note for note take on one of his biggest hits, the popish Jim Krueger composition. We Just Disagree - probably the worst song of the night. Luckily enough (for me) Mason did several songs from Alone Together including Look at You, Look at Me, Can’t Stop Worrying and his two great masterworks Shouldn’t Have Took More than You Gave and Only You Know and I Know. The original LP was released on marble vinyl. It was his crowning achievement – an entire disc about love, loss and longing. It’s about breaking up with someone you love dearly and learning that the only way out of the pain and sorrow is acceptance.

He also performed two of his greatest Traffic songs Dear Mr. Fantasy and Feelin’ Alright. Mason’s guitar work was simply stunning throughout the evening from the heavy full bodied rockin’ workout on Dear Mr., Fantasy and the sonic soaring Telecaster brilliance on All Along the Watchtower, a song he introduced to his friend Jami Hendrix back in ‘68. Hendrix recorded it at Olympic Studios forthwith and released it on his legendary Electric Ladyland LP (Mason played acoustic guitar on it). Mason incorporated it into his seventies shows and recorded it for his 1974 self titled LP. Tonight it was brilliant!

Mason puts on a tight show with a set list he’s been playing for years. I can forgive the stasis as well as his well rehearsed ad-libs. I’m sure it gets stale but people only want to hear the hits. To play new original music would be the death knell to touring sixties/seventies rock bands like REO, Styx, and Boston. The audience does not want to work too hard and hopes to leave with a pile of boozy music-fueled false memories. Yet, in the middle of the show, Mason had the temerity and a huge pair of I-don’t-give-a-damn oversized balls to play songs nobody knew (got to get beyond the seventies, brother) by cranking out Good 2 U and Let Me Go from his 2008 release 26 Letters-12 Notes. Unfortunately Mason received only polite applause for his effort. To be honest these songs did not measure up to Mason’s glorious past and served as a grim reminder of the fading arc of his star power. Onstage Mason appeared anxious and awkward as if he had lost his confidence. Perhaps he is fighting his inevitable decline and the necessary losses he encounter as he gets older. These are the things we give up in order to move on to the next stage of our lives - like youth, freedom, and experimentation. But liberation from our past glories can create the conditions for true creative freedom.
Maybe that’s what keeps Dave Mason performing and thrilling crowds with his wonderful songs and his overall craft. He’s still got the mojo; it’s just harder to notice.
At mid-point during the show he bent over to adjust the microphone stand and hit his head on it and muttered something unintelligible… it just wasn’t his day.

Peace
Bo White