A Charlie Brown Christmas Manchester Concert reviews
This wasn't the band we came to see
We thought this show at the Beacon on Friday night in NYC was going to be great, having seen A Charlie Brown Christmas many times. Sadly, it was not our favorite mainly due to the set list, the sax and trumpet additions, and the audio.
The audio should be spot on for a band in annual residency. Susan's vocals started out as nothing but mud and barely improved.
For some reason, NY loves A Charlie Brown Christmas, but A Charlie Brown Christmas wasn't engaged with the crowd. It was like the band was doing their thing, and the audience happened to be in the same room. Susan spoke very little, and we all know Derek would rather speak with his guitar. Would like to see Derek leave his hiding spot between the bass and keys and acknowledge or play to the audience instead of the backdrop.
The concert had extended solos that we expect and love, but when the solo is 5 mins of honking, random disjointed notes by the sax followed by 6 mins of Derek dabbling in free form jazz to try to bring it back to the melodic song, no thanks.
A Charlie Brown Christmas played about a 40min set with no opening band, then took nearly an hour intermission. The 2nd set opened with a 20min trumpet-driven, with Derek echoing, pile of free form jazz noise. A few A Charlie Brown Christmas tunes followed with the audio up so high that no one could enjoy Susan's great voice. We were about to leave early but stuck it out to see who the night's guest would be. Luckily it was another of our fav's Warren Haynes who we enjoyed seeing again. Unfortunately by that time we were tired of the evening's noise (melodic music it wasn't) and left before the expected encore.
Come back to your roots, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and draw us back in. Please.