Date: Fri 05-Sep-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

concert-Buffett-Meadows

Full Text:

(Jimmy Buffett concert review, 9/5/97)

Concert Review-

Buffett & Fans Do Some Daydreamin'

(with photos)

BY SHANNON HICKS

HARTFORD - Just days before the last weekend's Labor Day holiday - which not

only marks the unofficial end of summer for students heading back to school

but also the end of yet another concert season for the singer Jimmy Buffett -

The Meadows Music Theatre in Hartford became a temporary Margaritaville once

again. On July 29, Jimmy Buffett and The Coral Reefer Band presented a concert

that appealed to music lovers of all ages and featured music older than many

of the attendees.

Margaritaville is a fantastical location Jimmy Buffett created over two

decades ago, singing the praises of kicking back on the islands and sleeping

on hammocks, where there isn't anything to worry about and not much else to

do. Buffett's fans, called Parrot Heads, quickly latched on to the idea of

Margaritaville and have turned every concert performance by the King Parrot

Head himself into a tropical setting.

Concertgoers show up for Buffett performances hours before the show itself is

set to start. Like the followers of the now-defunct Grateful Dead, Parrot

Heads have been known to follow the performer from show to show, sometimes

devoting chunks of their lives to simply following the fun of a Buffett

concert.

The parking lots at and around the Meadows last Wednesday afternoon began

looking more like a Matisse painting than a tract of land off a major highway,

in the state's capital. Colors were splashed everywhere, the bright blues and

yellows and greens that are associated with a beach setting. Inflated sharks -

a key prop in Buffet Land - of all sizes and colors, and outfits of all

descriptions, from flip-flops and bathing suits to tropical shirts and grass

skirts (seen on more than a few men), all meandered their way around the

parking lots and inner plaza area of the Meadows hours before Buffett even

took the stage.

This year, as he has done innumerable times in the past, Buffett is touring

without a new album on the charts. He has released two albums in the past five

years, but traditionally can tour years on end without any new material.

It is the idea of Jimmy Buffett his fans love. They turn out to hear his songs

of happiness, calm lifestyles, funny stories of life on and off the road, and

to sing along with the library of songs he has accumulated while releasing

nearly thirty albums.

The Key West resident and former Billboard reporter had already sold out his

two previous summer concerts at The Meadows. When it was announced earlier

this year Buffett was making his third straight concert appearance at

Connecticut's newest amphitheatre, a hat trick for the ever popular concert

performer and entertainer was all but a given.

Indeed, 30,000 turned out last Wednesday for Buffett's return to Hartford.

There were new songs and old, and the thing that tied most of them together

was that many had not been performed live for a number of years. Tracks among

those that haven't been heard in a while included "They Don't Dance Like

Carmen No More," "Coconut Telegraph," the tour's namesake song, "Havana

Daydreaming," "Pirate Looks At 40," and his two "hits," "Come Monday" and

"Margaritaville." Even a number of songs from his most recent pair of albums,

Fruitcakes and Barometer Soup , were heard this year, including "Bank of Bad

Habits" from the latter and the title song of the former, which was actually a

video presentation that closed the show's intermission.

"Fins," a concert staple, was performed with the usual audience participation

of mimicking sharks; and Buffett even had a few laughs at himself before

playing "Used To Have Money One Time." A throwback to one of the

singer-songwriter's first albums, the performance of this song came after

Buffett joked about how he and his band used to be able to be seen in

performance for just $1 a ticket, when hotel owners would mis-spell his name

on the lounge marquee and people would show up expecting dinner.

"And now look what's happened!," said one of the world's wealthiest musicians.

This year's tour, called the Havana Daydream Tour, takes concertgoers on a

trip around a small part of the world Buffett knows very well. With the stage

initially set up to look like New Orleans, Buffett and the Coral Reefers

performed songs that took "travelers" with them from the French Quarter to

Miami, to Key West, to Havana, to San Francisco... all with the ultimate

destination, of course, of Margaritaville.

But as anyone who went to last week's concert - or any concert by Jimmy

Buffett - can tell you, everyone at The Meadows had already reached their

Margaritaville long before Buffett sang about it.