BS&T pleases crowd at SPAC
by Steve Grandin, The Saratogian
If attendance decides a concert’s success, Blood, Sweat & Tears’ performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Friday night has to be considered a failure. But if the crowd’s reaction is what counts, BS&T had to be one of the season’s most popular. Only 5,700 saw the concert that also featured a 22-man Chick Corea and his group, Return to Forever.
David Clayton-Thomas, Blood, Sweat and Tears’ lead singer, is the man that makes the well-known group go. After four years with BS&T, Clayton-Thomas left in 1972, only to meet mediocre success, while his group foundered. He returned late in 1974, and it’s easy to see why Blood, Sweat and Tears is currently on the way back to the top. Besides possessing a fine, unmistakable voice, Clayton-Thomas is an excellent showman who rolls with the punches
and makes the audience feel at ease. For instance, early in the evening, his microphone failed, but Clayton-Thomas hung in there and merely stretched out the ending of his song until the problem could be corrected. And later on, a hat was tossed on stage, and he didn’t skip a note as he put it on and strutted around the stage.
Clayton-Thomas’ friends in the group proved to be good, but definitely not strong enough to hold together without its lead singer. In the usual jazz style, most of the band’s members gave solos at one time or another, with Dave Bargeron’s tuba solo and Bill Tillman’s flute job being the best. The audience nearly gave Tillman a standing ovation following his incredible performance. Other members of the group were Bobby Colomby, drums; Joe Giorgianni, trumpet; Tony Klatka, saxophone; Georg Wadenius, guitar; Ron McClure, bass; and Larry Willis, keyboards.
Many of the fans would have been content if BS&T had only played all of their big hits. But the group proved to be much more talented than just that, as they did such cuts as Chick Corea’s “Spain” and the Beatles’ “Got to Get You Into My Life.” The biggest ovations came on “And When I Die”, “Hi-De-Ho” and “Spinning Wheel” until the pair of tunes the group played as an encore. “You Made Me So Very Happy” made the audience very happy, while “Lucretia MacEvil” completely brought down the house. One of the high points of the night was when Clayton-Thomas, bothered by the numerous fireworks the entire evening, told the instigators, “I hope you all blow your —— off!!”
Return to Forever surprised most of the people that weren’t familiar with them. They only played four songs, but their performance lasted over an hour as all their tunes were long instrumentals. The group consists of a pair of good guitarists, Stanley Clarke and Al Di Meola, the famed Chick Corea on the keyboards, and drummer Lenny White. While Corea put on his usual great show with synthesizers, organs, and electric pianos, it was White and his drums that were best received. His drums were literally smoking the entire time as he went at it with incredible speed and intensity. The top songs were the opener “Beyond the Seventh Galaxy” and “Celebration Suite”, the finale.
SPAC billed the evening as “musical fireworks”. Return To Forever and Blood, Sweat & Tears proved to be the fireworks, but it was David Clayton-Thomas that lit the match to ignite the explosion.
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