Hot Tuna Lays Down The Groove & Sentimental Thunder At Burlington’s Flynn Center (SHOW REVIEW)

Errantly introduced as returning to the ‘State Theater,” Hot Tuna nevertheless made itself at home at the Flynn Center the night of September 16th in the midst of its final electric tour. And it wasn’t just in rightfully acknowledging the beauty of the Green Mountain venue near the conclusion of the two-set performance: it was more about how long-time friends and collaborators Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassady, in the company of easygoing but emphatic drummer Justin Guip, so unaffectedly continued what is now a tradition of over half-century.

Any attendee unaware of this tour being billed as ‘The Final Electric Run’ wouldn’t be reminded of this significant milestone in the history of a band that started as an offshoot of Jefferson Airplane back in 1969. There were no sentimental spoken interludes or melodramatic gestures over the course of the roughly two hours. There were, however, some clear-cut themes running through the selection of material, introduced early on during “Ice Age” and “Second Chances.”

And more explicit references to the passage of time arrived in the form of “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” “How Long Blues” and “I Don’t Wanna Go.” On this second stop of the tour, Tuna seemed to be drawing an outline to be entirely filled in over the course of subsequent stops, but certainly not to the exclusion of this occasion. Ergo, the uplifting moments were just as notable in the anticipation of things to come in “Letter to the North Star” and the implicit bemusement with the world at large in “Day To Day Out The Window Blues.”

Kaukonen and Casady have never been anything but honest as they’ve delved into the treasure of blues music they love as well as the distinctive originals of the guitarists like “Ode to Billy Dean.” But as they purposefully enact this particular right of passage and subsequently relegate themselves to acoustic presentations in the future, they are making the transition seem perfectly natural.

Echoing the mix of sounds resplendent on the classic Tuna LP Burgers, this late summer night certainly nurtured the process. Kaukonen used an instrument designed for the harsh, cutting tones on “Funky #7,” roughly twenty-five percent of the time. It was a high-volume study in contrast that allowed him to exhibit his extensive vocabulary on the fretboard (and caused at least one concertgoer to cover her ears right from the outset).

Otherwise, the organic ‘wooden’ tones Jorma coaxed from his other guitar of choice, as on “Good Shepherd,” carried the warmth of his familiarity with such material and, in turn, his long-abiding creative and personal relationship with the bassist. The joking repartee about ‘band meetings’s-referencing a between-song discussion between the two–was but a superficial instance of the mutual deference that allowed Casady the most prominent instrumental passages of the evening.

However, as Hot Tuna has never been given to grand gesture, it was action as the definition of understatement. Only the most gracious sort occurred on the MainStage, as a matter of fact, wherein such instances Kaukonen approached the drummer–who has some history with the Queen City quite apart from his tenure as a mainstay at Levon Helm’s barn in Woodstock NY–and thus left his nattily-attired comrade near stage center right up front.

There were otherwise precious few extensive collective improvisations before the two-thirds capacity crowd (the loyalty of which long-in-the-tooth demographic could not have been more obvious than in their proud display of various styles of Tuna t-shirts). Most such spontaneous interludes occurred at the patient intros to that of the aforementioned final number, where Jack and Justin built a rhythmic framework for the tune upon which Kaukonen artfully embroidered (however gingerly the latter seemed to move about the stage, there was otherwise no denying his manual dexterity).

However sad it might be to contemplate this purposeful progression of Hot Tuna’s, it’s a deliberate decision that actually brings them back to their roots as encapsulated on their eponymous debut album. While the high spirits with which this threesome conducted itself in Vermont were comparatively muted, the pleasure they took in each other’s musicianship couldn’t have been more pronounced.

Otherwise, Kaukonen would not have so gleefully growled his way through his vocal to “Bowlegged Woman, Knock Kneed Man,” then spit fire through his big red guitar. The man’s mishandling of lyrics during a few vocals was less frequent than those instances by which, in the decidedly Dylanesque style of vocal delivery he’s honed the last few years, he stretched and snapped lines as he talked/sang.

The absence of an encore might well have given lie to the obvious affection Hot Tuna proffered its audience. The anxious calls for more from the front of the house belied the steady stream exiting up the aisles and down the stairs from the Flynn balcony: the fact those exhortations were all for naught did little to dissuade those with the gratified expressions on certain faces as they headed out to the crowded streets of Burlington on a Saturday night.

The predominance of stoic visages was, however, more representative of the uncommon reserve of the audience during the show (distinct from a few select pockets of enthusiasm on the floor and the dancers in the back). Hot Tuna’s refusal to return to the stage was no doubt less a response to the generally subdued applause at the end of numbers like “Soliloquy For 2” and “Sea Child,” than an implicit sign of subsequent plans to come back and play for an even more extended period than such punctuation to a single concert as this would allow.

Photos by Ross Mickel

*****

Set List (from Jorma’s blog ‘Cracks in the Finish):

First Set:

Letter To The North Star

Ice Age

Second Chances

Talkin’ Bout You

Come Back Baby

Trial By Fire

Sleep Song

Death Don’t Have No Mercy