Joe Jackson remained at his piano — although not always seated — throughout his Tuesday night performance at the Boulder Theater. Photos by Candace Horgan.
Eclectic pop pianist has lived nine lives in the music world — in guises that have included Angry Young Man, Gershwin-esque troubadour, jive cat, classical muse and urban cocktail-lounge sophisticate. While it can’t be said that his fans clamor for a memoir of each life (few cry out for more “Heaven and Hell,” a song cycle with each of seven tracks representing a different deadly sin), most have spawned at least a handful of first-rate songs.
Judging by the audience reaction to Jackson’s eclectic set list and ebullient Tuesday night performance at the , at least 1,000 fans within Denver Metro will wander wherever he leads. These fans expressed none of the ambivalence audiences typically exhibit during the “veteran rocker playing deep cuts from the new album” part of the set, or the “obscure British hit from the ’60s” encore. The crowd was raucous from the get-go. Even during “Chinatown,” perhaps the most avant-garde anti-melody from Jackson’s 1982 album “Night and Day,” several people around me danced jerkily. For the uninitiated, this is like dancing to the sound of the garbage disposal.
Jackson did get the audience in the game early. He opened with his only top-ten hit, “Steppin’ Out,” a shimmering, urbane piece of melodic candy. Drummer Dave Houghton took the lead on the ordinarily piano-driven song, adding a propulsive backbeat with the assistance of bassist Graham Maby. (Each of these longtime Joe Jackson Band members are A-list accompanists.) Jackson came onstage last, looking sharp in stark-white hair, white shirt, white socks, and black suit. He sat at the piano and remained there (though not entirely seated) for the entirety of the set.
From there and throughout the first half of the set, Jackson rummaged through newer songs from his early 2008 album, “Rain” (a throwback to the straightforward piano melodies of “Night and Day”), and relative obscurities that spanned his 30-year career. But even on lesser-known songs, Jackson held the room captive with his unbridled exuberance. Truly playing each song as if it was the first and last time he would perform them, apparently feeling every note and line anew, he exuded an infectious joy and energy.
His voice was, as he acknowledged, “a little creaky,” but not so bad. Certainly, he never held back — including with some of his more excited (or half-cocked) female fans, one of whom interrupted a song intro with a shout of “I love you!” and drew a Jacksonesque response of “Thank you. Now, could you please be quiet?” The band’s full sound never felt constrained by lack of guitar; I hadn’t even thought about it until I sat to write this review.
In time, Jackson came around to some classics, including “Itap Different for Girls,” “Is She Really Going Out With Him” and “On Your Radio.” The contrast in recognizability whipped the audience into the sort of bother usually reserved for “the big hits,” though none of these songs cracked Billboard’s top 20. (While Jackson’s “you can only hope to hear me on your radio” line remains true today, fans with rose-colored glasses may forget that Jackson was largely airplay-free back in the day, either.)
The Boulder Theater is Jackson’s kind of room — small enough for him to connect with the audience, big enough to generate some kinetic energy, and filled with the culturally upwardly mobile. This includes a young bellhop at the (his parents were surely teenagers when “I’m The Man” came out) who told me Jackson was one of the nicest guys and most awesome musicians that regularly stays at the Boulderado — told me this from the ninth-row-center comped seat he had scammed.
He had left after the third song of the night, more than an hour before Jackson closed elegantly with “A Slow Song,” also from “Night and Day.” Notwithstanding our bellhop friend, nearly every ticketholder remained rapt, reveling in nostalgia but also saluting the pride, performance and passion Jackson had brought to the room. Patience is rewarded.
Jeremy Simon is a Denver writer and Reverb contributor.
Candace Horgan is a Denver freelance photographer and a regular Reverb contributor.
