James Taylor at the Delta Center, Monday, June 15, one show only.
The sky had threatened and the venue had been changed and the seating had been confusing and the crowd had been irritable. But in the end it didn't matter.It hardly even mattered that, for some of us at least, the acoustics were so bad that it was almost impossible to hear what he said between songs.
None of it mattered because James Taylor was on stage and he sang his gentle heart out.
He's been doing this for more than 20 years now, but Monday night at the Delta Center he was as good as any fan, old or new, could have hoped.
The threat of snow forced the concert from ParkWest to the Delta Center, which meant that seat assignments had to be translated to a different configuration - one that didn't turn out well for some folks who had waited half the night to buy tickets when they went on sale in May.
In the confusion, general admission ticket holders tried to invade seating sections they hadn't paid for. And some were quite ornery when ushers tried to oust them.
Those gripes aside (oh yes, and a grumble or two about the poor placement of some audience members on the wrong side of the speakers), it was a perfect night. The only other improvement would have been a four-hour show, so Taylor could have sung "Walking Man" and "A Song For You" and "Blossom" and maybe even "Steamroller."
That's the trouble when you've been around for more than two decades, and some of your fans are fortysomething and some of your fans are just discovering you at 15; there are just too many audience favorites.
Taylor kept up a good-natured chatter throughout the show, in contrast to some of his former appearances in Utah. He also bounced happily around the stage on the livelier numbers, looking like some kind of Beetlejuice - a skinny, balding man with the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old.
Taylor brought along some of the same back-up singers who appear with him on a current Disney Channel documentary. At one point, vocalist Arnold McCuller took over the mike to sing lead on "Is That the Way You Look?" while Taylor sang back-up.
The quartet was also stunning on "Shed a Little Light," the Martin Luther King tribute from Taylor's newest album, the one he's doing this tour to plug.
Taylor was great on rousing songs like "How Sweet It Is" and "Mama Don't You Leave L.A." But he was JT at his best when he slowed down, and his voice became gentle, lazing around his chords like a midsummer's afternoon.
"What are you doing tomorrow night?" he asked his foot-stomping, appreciative fans. "Why don't you come to Boise?" he said, meaning tonight's concert.
There probably wasn't a fan there who didn't wish Boise weren't six hours away.