The Sherman Minton Bridge: It's the gateway to Horseshoe, isn't it?

That explains a lot about the horsetrading, doesn't it?

Horseshoe patron from Louisville takes Spring Street instead, arrives at poker table in same amount of time.

Already the "word on the street" is that Horseshoe will decamp to Jeffersonville with lightning speed if the Sherman Minton closure isn't rectified sooner rather than later. Such rumors, while grounded in a degree of fact (statutorily, Jeffersonville might now host a casino), ignore other facts, namely the ridiculously high cost of relocation as well as the state-mandated process for moving.

Far closer to reality is the closing statement of reporter Hershberg's piece, as attributed to a casino official: "If they choose to gamble, they will come to Horseshoe for an extra 10 minutes drive."

Is it time to begin tolling for the future south(west)end bridge?

Bridge shutdown hurts Horseshoe Casino; Official: Casino business down, by Ben Zion Hershberg (One Formerly Great Louisville Newspaper)

Business at Horseshoe Southern Indiana Casino business was down by double digits last weekend and was slower than usual earlier this week after the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge, an official acknowledged.

But Jonathan Jones, the casino’s vice president of operations, said business was good Wednesday, when buses brought in patrons from the metropolitan area and beyond, and Thursday morning showed continuing signs of progress.

He declined to provide more specific estimates of foot traffic this week but said “we are all very optimistic the business will come back and it will do so quickly.”

Was I in downtown New Albany last night, and did I do all that?

Times may be changing in New Albany, but days like yesterday still strike me as somewhat surreal when viewed from the sobriety of a morning after.

Perhaps some day this will change -- not the sobering up, but the surrealism.

The Confidentials began with late afternoon, craft-roasted coffee at Dueling Grounds, browsing the Destinations Booksellers racks as we sipped, and then adjourning to the Bank Street Brewhouse for frites and a beer each.

Next stop was Wick’s on State for dinner with the Bluegills. Upon entering, I heard a familiar voice: Hugh E. Bir, covering Conway Twitty’s “Tight Fitting Jeans” from a stool in the crowded barroom. Mike Wyckliffe didn’t wait for me to ask, and within minutes, I was behind the bar, changing the tap handles as Elector replaced Amber Bock on tap.

This led to progressive pints to accompany our pizza and salad, and sated, the four of us proceeded to Horseshoe for the local leg of The Who singer Roger Daltrey’s “Use It or Lose It” tour in the Showroom. To my considerable surprise, the Horseshoe’s main barroom had BBC Bourbon Barrel Stout on tap, and it proved a worthy libation for sipping as I caught up with Mo, arguably the area’s biggest fan of The Who, after a chance meeting with him along the concourse.

This isn’t intended as a concert review. At the same time, Daltrey was spry and in as good a voice as one might imagine at the age of 65. The set list was predictably filled with Who songs, but to Daltrey’s credit, some of these are seldom played live by anyone, including the group itself. A version of “Going Mobile” was sung by Daltrey’s band mate, Simon Townshend (yes, the younger brother of Peter), and will stand as my top concert moment of the year so far.

When it was over, we returned home to reset clocks and contemplate the evening’s central theme: Most of it took place within New Albany, and all of it within 10 miles of home, without crossing the river to Louisville.

Let’s all pat ourselves on the back … and return to work, because the trick now is to keep the momentum going.

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.

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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.

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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.

Sheryl Crow at Caesar’s: Wonderful music, creepy venue ... but at least it wasn’t Phoenix Hill.

Last evening was our first opportunity to view the setting for the summer's outdoor concert series at the casino soon to be formerly known as Caesar's. It seems to me that this year's slate of shows is being used to help re-brand the facility as the Horseshoe (Harrah's); be that as it may, it remains a non-essential edifice to this non-gambler's jaundiced eyes even if the music was pure excellence.

I'll never forget entering Caesar's Indiana for the first time in 2002. For me, it was (and remains) something almost unspeakably tacky, almost to the point of physically repellant. It's nothing against my many friends who have jobs there and profit from it … and nothing against the money that the casino has brought into the community under orders from the state as a precondition of doing business. Now as always, let the buyer beware, and the savvy divide the proceeds.

But watching the roving groups of the ill-dressed in their University of Kentucky jackets (hint: they didn't go to school there, if they can locate Lexington KY on a map at all) gawk and drool in amazement at the plasticized surface glitz designed to make it easier to part them from their cash made for a disquieting experience – and still does. Casinos may actually be just another entertainment option, yet there's something profoundly sad about the spectacle of people tithing scant wealth for even more elusive hope, when a standard certificate of deposit would yield greater dividends in the end.

Shawn Mullins opened Sheryl Crow's performance on Saturday night, introducing his 1998 number one single "Rock-a-Bye" as, "A medley of my hit." Roughly half of Mullins's new album, "Honey Dew," was performed by the singer-songwriter and a crackerjack backing band, and to this casual listener, the songs sounded truer to his Southern roots than previous, more mainstream efforts.

Sheryl Crow, on the other hand, is almost gloriously mainstream, combining sassy pop rockers with the occasional countryish ballad designed to jerk the occasional tear from female eyes. Crow shares with Mullins a band that boasts fabulous musicianship, as well as a new release, "Detours," which was amply previewed, obviously is the work of a mature artist, and includes a couple of songs protesting the idiocy of America's sitting regime … words almost surely lost on the casino crowd.

Of course, an audience composed primarily by people my age or older, most of them seriously swizzled on bad beer and watery cocktails, wanted the hits -- damn it! -- and far too many of them hilariously attempted to sing along with Sheryl as she obligingly threw out the radio tunes. Keep it in the shower, guys. It was painful.

Both Mullins and Crow were superb, and we richly enjoyed the evening in spite of my venomous preconceived notions about the nature of the gambling industry and my (accompanying) contempt for the cultural incomprehension of my aging brethren.

In particular, I'm constantly thankful for the many advances in technology that have combined to make concerts more enjoyable. The music was loud enough for a mild buzz in my ears afterward, but remarkably clear and undistorted all in all.

By the way, the venue itself is composed of bleachers, rather smallish plastic chairs and seats, and an indoor clubhouse (luxury box?) in the rear that faces the stage. I'm assuming the indoor facility exists to air-condition the wealthy and assorted high rollers during summer's mosquito-laden heat and humidity, although last night was cool, crisp and joyful in this regard. Plastic seats on the ground, center stage, are the more expensive ones, many apparently taken by members of the casino's "we lose here regularly" cadres.

All of it is located between the indoor casino complex and the looming, Ceausescu-esque hotel, adjacent to the housing unit's car park, which might someday be dry-walled in, given HVAC, and used to house the homeless from both Indiana and Kentucky. I'm sure they have money to lose, too ... right?

Originally posted at MySpace under Music.