By Rick Shefchik
St. Paul Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — If any ’70s-era band should have survived to play arena concerts and win Grammys in the 21st century, it would be Steely Dan. After all, they were an anachronism in their own time, just as they are today.
While other groups, then as now, chased temporary styles and ephemeral fads, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen worked with serious, versatile musicians, composed jazz-tinged songs and wrote lyrics that amused them, even if others weren’t always in on the joke.
Such iconoclasm ought to have earned them a quick exit from the pop stage, but the music world respected them during their initial success, missed them when they were gone for 20 years and embraced them when they returned.
Becker’s and Fagen’s supporting cast has changed completely over the decades, but the music has not: The current lineup on display Thursday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul still plays their unique brand of tight, in-the-pocket funk-jazz-soul-rock.
If anything, the songs are better than ever. After an extended break as a band, the current level of songwriting from Steely Dan’s two most recent CDs is cut from exactly the same cloth as the hits of yesteryear.
And the hits feel richer and meatier now that they have marinated for so long, rather than having gone stale from neglect or tired from overuse.
Fagen and Becker were preceded on stage by an eight-piece band and three female backup singers who are standard features of their recordings and shows. When the principal duo appeared, they looked like a couple of college professors arriving to teach a lecture on music theory — which is more or less what they proceeded to do.
They began with a stunning version of “Aja,” a complex, sophisticated suite stretched out to showcase the four-man horn section and an extended percussion section near the end by drummer Keith Carlock.
By the time it ended, it was clear that Steely Dan had no interest in coasting on a greatest hits tour.
“Hiya, kids,” the sardonic Fagen greeted the enthusiastic — and quite mature — crowd of 7,818 fans.
The group then proceeded to skip between sure favorites — “Time Out of Mind,” “Black Cow,” “Babylon Sisters,” “Peg,” “Hey 19” and “Josie” — and selections from the two recent CDs, including “Godwhacker” and “Things I Miss the Most” from “Everything Must Go,” and “Janie Runaway” from “Two Against Nature.”
The normally silent Becker actually took two lead vocals (he sounds a little like Dr. John), on “Haitian Divorce” and the new “Slang of Ages,” during which he introduced the band, “the Steely Dan Everything Must Blow Orchestra.”
Fagen’s vocals were strong and assured, though with the passage of time he seems even less like a rock star. There’s a sly, wheedling quality to his voice that has grown more acute, but because the lyrics are so clever and astute — and the female vocal trio fills all the cracks so completely — the effect never becomes annoying.
Becker took about half the guitar solos, but it was lead guitarist Jon Herington who frequently and spectacularly handled the chore of duplicating and embellishing the famous solos from the original recordings, all laid down years ago by the best session players in the business, and now a part of our collective musical consciousness.
After a 20-minute intermission, the second half opened with a neat, unrecorded song called “The Steely Dan Show,” sung entirely by the female chorus, and later described by Fagen as “an anthem written as a tribute to us … by us. It’s pretty disgusting, really, but there you go.”
If there was a disappointment to the show, it was the songs that were not performed.
They encored with “My Old School,” one of their oldest hits and one of their straightest rock ‘n’ roll songs; and finished with “FM,” one of their biggest hits. Left unperformed were gems like “Deacon Blues,” “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number,” “Reelin’ in the Years” and “Do It Again.”
Knowing, however, that Steely Dan is back on the road, seemingly enjoying it this time and featuring musicians who can handle anything the duo has written and recorded in the past, one can take solace that they might well be back again with a different set list.
Time passing them by certainly won’t be an issue.
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