Nevilles summon soul from New Orleans swamps
NIAGARA FALLS — If you’ve been to New Orleans, you understand.
The music doesn’t beat you over the head; it works its way up through the soles of your shoes, gets your knees wobbling, finally hits your hips with a real (but subtle) power, makes its way to your heart, and finally, after taking full possession of your body, asks admittance to your brain-box.
People talk about “soul music” all the time, but so often, the term is tossed around in service of the latest Mariah Carey single or the least stiff of the current American Idol batch. Real soul is something else entirely. And real soul is what the Neville Brothers trade in.
Friday, inside the Events Center of the Seneca Niagara Casino, the Nevilles came to share New Orleans music with the rest of us. This was the first time the band has been to our area since Hurricane Katrina, and though the group has always been redolent of the city in which the four siblings were born, learned to play and continue to consider their home, an added poignancy was apparent in the group’s performance. That poignancy was underscored by Dr. John’s stellar set, as well. The erstwhile Mac Rebennack is riding high on the positive critical feedback and strong sales granted his recently released “City That Care Forgot,” a record centered on post-Katrina New Orleans, and one that is not afraid to name names.
Some confusion surrounded the evening’s billing. The concert billing suggested that the Nevilles would be the headlining act, and Dr. John the support. The opposite turned out to be the case. The Nevilles went on first and played an abbreviated one-hour set, and Dr. John closed the show. This seemed to be a disappointment to several late-arriving audience members. Musically, both acts kicked it, bayou-style. One couldn’t help but feel that the mighty Nevilles were shortshrifted, though.
Sixty minutes with Charles, Cyril, Art and Aaron Neville is worth more than a room full of gold, though, and the Brothers made the most of their relatively short time onstage. With the help of an extremely with-it, deep-in-the-pocket and eminently versatile core of supplemental musicians, the four offered their trademark blend of funk, reggae, island music, soul, gospel, rock, pop and R&B in rapid-fire succession. This was a show that aimed to fuse body and soul, and during its most intense moments, it did.
“Africa” was one of these intense moments, blending as it did the inimitable N’awlins shuffle with African rhythms and somehow a West Indies vibe, as the brothers joined their voices in harmony, and the percussion bubbled vigorously beneath.
When Aaron took the microphone to deliver Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” the already elevated emotional tenor in the room pulled itself up another rung. So gorgeous and deeply moving was the singer’s delivery as it wove its way through a pitch-perfect blend of horn-like falsetto and full-voice lines that a standing ovation broke out halfway through. Neville is simply one of the strongest R&B singers this side of Stevie Wonder and the aforementioned Cooke.
The title tune from “Yellow Moon” was a swampy hip-shaker, and the seminal New Orleans anthem “Shake Your Tambourine” came too soon. The Neville Brothers are a national treasure, and as ambassadors for the city where our country’s music was born, they shine.
Dr. John and his tight, funky four-piece band were a bit of a letdown after the Nevilles, through no fault of their own. Though the music from the new album was taut, soulful and funky — and its lyrical text pointed and apt — there was a sleepiness to the band’s set, broken by the evergreen “Right Place Wrong Time,” and obliterated completely during the full expanse of the outstanding “I Walk on Gilded Splinters.”
It was strange to be party to such an outstanding evening of New Orleans music while remaining seated. No one danced, which is just plain wrong. That aside, this was a strong show.
Concert Review
The Neville Brothers
With Dr. John on Friday night in Seneca Niagara Events Center, Niagara Falls.
