Review: Michael McDonald at the Horseshoe Casino, December 11, 2008.

It comes as no surprise that pop-rock veterans structure their live performances around a calculated celebration of their memorable back catalogs.

It does come as a surprise when the pandering quotient is low, the standards are subtly updated, covers are enthusiastically rendered, and the drummer is an African-American female from Memphis who not only has a love affair with crash cymbals, but also sings backing vocals.

These qualities are rare, indeed.

Last night at the Horseshoe Casino, Michael McDonald also managed to throw a half-dozen urbane and mostly seldom heard Christmas numbers into the mix, while sly dedicating “Takin’ It to the Streets” to change (read: Obama) in America, eliciting a healthy ovation from an occasionally rude (read: drunken redneck) crowd.

----

I’m one of the few people you’ll ever meet who will actually admit to being lukewarm about the Doobie Brothers before McDonald joined them, and becoming a real fan of the group only when the St. Louis-born keyboardist brought a healthy dose of sophisticated blue-eyed to soul to the group, contributing a half-dozen classic pop staples from 1976-1981, songs like “It Keeps You Running,“ What a Fool Believes,” “Minute by Minute,” and the only one of these songs neglected during a 75-minute show last evening, “Real Love.”

When the zenith crested, McDonald went solo, scoring a handful of hits during the 1980’s (“I Keep Forgetting (We’re Not in Love Any More)” and “Sweet Freedom,” among others), and eventually crafting a solid second career in the new millennium as an interpreter of Motown and soul. The Doobies took time off and later reformed around the nexus of its leathery biker roots, reverting to the populist simplicity desired by its hardcore supporters.

Back at the Horseshoe, the set list was well crafted, the stage show mature, and the backing musicians superb. Concerts these days are shorter and ticket prices higher, but in terms of value, I believe they’re better in the main. Audio and sound technology is light years ahead of the selectively recalled good old days, and few if any performers of McDonald’s caliber appear without an upper echelon of skilled players behind them.

Over coffee this morning, Mrs. Confidential observed that she thinks McDonald looks better in “old” age, with his hair completely white and the former Bohemian beard, also white, now closely cropped. To me, he looks like an entirely different person from the one I remember, although the voice has never changed.

Taken together, these thoughts prompted a random reflection about the song “Real Love” and something written about it at the time in Rolling Stone magazine. It turns out that the source of my recollection is a 1980 review of “One Step Closer,” the final Doobie Brothers album with McDonald, written by Don Shewey. I found it on line. Not only is it a fine piece of writing, but it’s also a snapshot of another age. I'll close with the first half of it.

----

When television's 20/20 profiled the Doobie Brothers last summer, the segment's highlight was a brief glimpse of the band laying down the vocal tracks to "Real Love," the first single from One Step Closer. Clustered around a mike, several Doobies exhaled ethereal backup harmonies. Standing dramatically in front of another microphone was the group's lead singer, Michael McDonald, who cowrote the tune. The camera moved in on McDonald in midsong: eyes closed, his voice intense, his dark beard gently but urgently nuzzling the foam rubber that covered the mike. I was startled by this intimate picture. It reminded me of seeing Billie Holiday on film for the first time and discovering that she wasn't a fancy, heavy-lidded crooner but a fragile creature with wide eyes and a musician's alertness. Instead of a jaunty pop star exploiting a sensually gruff baritone, McDonald suddenly seemed like a seasoned stage actor, a passionate Romeo pouring out his heart to a Juliet conjured from thin air. He was caught up in his imagination and oblivious to the world.

"Real Love" is not only one of the great pop songs of the year but probably the best record the Doobie Brothers have ever made. Every time I hear it, I can't help thinking about that indelible image of McDonald's furry face cozying up to the microphone. The terse drumbeats, delicate guitar notes and electric keyboard chords that start the track cast a spell, while–in suspended time, like that moment when sex begins and clocks stop–Michael McDonald spins out a tale of romantic pathos: the struggle to recapture one's first dream of love, the inevitable series of unfulfilling encounters "grindin' down a secret part of you," the willing self-deceit ("Let me hear you lie just a little/Tell me I'm the only man/That you ever really loved"). It's an old story, yet McDonald's emotional reading makes it immediate. He projects the kind of heart-rending vulnerability stereotypically ascribed to women. "When you say comfort me/To anyone who approaches," he sings, with enough feeling in "comfort me" to suggest he's said it plenty of times himself. And the way he limns "Well we've both lived/Long enough to know/That we'd trade it all right now/For just one minute of real love" unexpectedly conveys the romantic's conviction that in the instant when love is most real, it's already fading.

Not surprisingly, "Real Love" overwhelms everything else on One Step Closer.