Al Green

Tower Theater, Sun, Feb. 15

Love and Brief

Doing the cliche about singing the phone book one better, Al Green did away with words altogether at the Tower earlier this month. While his backing singers and the enthusiastic crowd took up the lyrics to classics like "Let's Stay Together" and "Love and Happiness," Green danced, praised the Lord and occasionally strolled over to the piano to sip from an array of Gatorades, chiming in with an ecstatic, wordless high note when the spirit moved him. Perhaps avoiding the words is Green's way of sidestepping the contradictions in the return to love songs he'd previously regarded as sinful, though at times it was frustrating, as if he were singing karaoke at his own concert. That's not to say he was uninvolved -- indeed, he probably spent more time playing to the crowd than singing to it. After about half an hour of warm-up, Green finally settled into a groove; "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" and the title song from his new I Can't Stop were thrilling, with Green's 10-piece band ably re-creating the classic Hi Studios sound (although the muddy mix wasn't up to the Tower's usual standards). Unfortunately, by then, the show was halfway over. After just over an hour (or roughly a minute for each dollar my seat would have cost), Green left the stage, and the lights came up without an encore. At least singing the phone book would have taken a bit longer.

—Sam Adams

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