Concert Review
Wolf Den, Uncasville, CT
March 12, 2016
Knowing that the Wolf Den at the Mohegan Sun is general admission, first come/first served seating, I decided to get down there a couple hours ahead of time. By the time I got there around 6, there was already a long line of people waiting. I was about 100 people back from the front of the line, but unfortunately each person in line is allowed to save spots for 3 other people whether they’re in line or not. Eventually security started to let people in, but when I was maybe 30 people from the front they said we would have to wait. Apparently there are 150 or so seats saved for ‘high rollers’, who had until 8:15 to show up for the concert. As the show started at 8, we had to watch the first few songs from outside the Wolf Den. Those of us outside were having a good time – dancing, singing, enjoying the show from where we were. 8:15 rolls around, and one of the security guards motions for a group of 6 of us to come in, and proceeds to lead us to a booth right on the side of the stage – absolutely perfect seats. Maybe 5 feet from the stage. Now, on to the performance.
Quite honestly David’s performance was one of the most enjoyable I have seen, by anyone. This was my first time seeing him live, although I know his songs quite well. He looked great, sounded great, and had the audience in the palm of his hand throughout the entire show. The audience was dancing and singing along to each song, enthusiastically applauding after each one. He seemed very happy and joked frequently, although he did remark that he was a bit hot (it was). A nice surprise was David performing ‘I’m a Believer’ after doing ‘Daydream Believer’, as he mentioned one of Davy Jones’ daughters was in the audience. Another pleasant surprise was a spontaneous version of the Mann/Weil song ‘Broadway’ that developed from the keyboard solo during band introductions. It sounded great, and David remarked to the band that they really need to rehearse it, so hopefully we’ll be seeing that in future shows. The rest of the set list generally followed what he did at the shows in late January. .
All of the people I sat with were blown away by David’s performance. You would never know he was 65 years old – so much energy and enthusiasm and obvious love for the audience. Just a total entertainer. Hopefully David could feel some of the love coming back at him from the audience. Luckily I’ll be seeing him again this June in Hartford and the early Newark show a few weeks after that. I picked up the VIP ticket for that one (Newark), so hopefully I’ll be able to say hi and thank you to him in person.
Daniel
