October 18, 2009: A Smooth Evening with Rob Thomas

San Jose, CA
Event Center

ARRRRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!! I just spent 30 minutes writing up a note and it vanished!!! ARRRRGGGHH!!!! Okay, starting over....

My much delayed concert season has finally kicked in to full gear with the first of 3 shows in 8 days. It's taken forever to get here -- I bought many of these tickets months ago! Finally getting the payoff!

I've been a Matchbox Twenty fan since their first album and have loved all of Rob Thomas's solo work, so was really looking forward to this show. My friend Ana Marie is pretty much in the same boat and was going to go to the show with me Sunday night, but a family emergency forced her to cancel on me Sunday morning. Bummer.

So I made my way to San Jose on my own and arrived at the Event Center a little after 7:00 and the first act, Carolina Live, was already on stage. Not knowing who they were I took my time getting to my seat, but was VERY pleased when I finally worked my way down. Now, I had thought the seat would be pretty good being in the first row of the first fixed seat section, I just didn't realize HOW good. I was right off the floor and about 8 rows from the stage. Started kicking myself immediately for not bringing my camera! GRRR.

Carolina Live was fairly decent, but totally unfamiliar so I really have no opinion on their set. They were followed by One Republic who some folks in the audience seemed to know, but again totally lost on me. The only song they played that I knew was a cover of Tears For Fears' "Shout" -- which they butchered. The singer's voice was just too thin and he kept trying for notes out of his range. When he stayed in his range, he was OK. The most remarkable thing I noticed was their instrumentation. One guy switched between bass, guitar, and cello while a second pulled out a violin when not playing guitar. Don't see that in every rock band.

Between sets I chatted with the couple sitting next to me and wound up making a concert buddy in the woman. When Rob Thomas hit the stage around 9:00, she jumped up with me and we sang and danced around together most of the show. He opened with "Fire on the Mountain" from his new CD and followed up with two more new tracks before taking on older material. (Sorry, no pen, no paper, thus no set list. I'm out of practice!) The first third of the show was pretty rockin' and my new buddy and I were up dancing and singing along. Throughout the show I sent periodic texts and calls to Ana Marie so my actual concert buddy could get a little taste of the show. Somewhere around mid-show he played a tune he'd recorded during the Cradlesong sessions and said he regretted not putting it on the album. It was called "Sunday New York Blue" and he was right to regret leaving it off -- great song hope there's a downloadable version somewhere.

Now, this was the second time I've seen Rob solo and I've seen MB20 a few times and each time leading up to the show I'd wonder "will Carlos show up?" The first time I saw MB20 was shortly after "Smooth" was all over the radio and lo and behold Carlos DID show up... following an introduction that started with "We don't play 'Smooth' in our set..." *shrug* Got a good version of "All Along the Watchtower" instead. Okay, maybe at the solo show... well, I got "Smooth," right after an introduction that started "I invited Carlos but..." So I wasn't really holding my breath. Thought it would be possible, local show and all, but it's been 10 years since "Smooth" was all over the radio it's not as big a deal. Yeah, right.

So the main set ended and the band headed offstage and I kept my eyes on the side of the stage as I had a clear view of the techs on that side. Did a mental check list of songs not yet played and "Smooth" was among them. The band comes back on stage and launches in to "This Is How a Heart Breaks" and I catch a white hat out of the corner of my eye. I look over to the side of the stage and there's Carlos... with a guitar. I point him out to my new buddy and the crowd around me all starts looking over. I barely heard the introduction as I was wildly getting Ana Marie on the phone -- I'm sure she was deafened by the roar that came up from the crowd as Carlos Santana took the stage. There were maybe 4,000 people in the arena (possibly less as it was far from sold out) but the roar sounded like 20,000. They did a fairly slow tempoed version of "Smooth" before launching into a couple of covers -- Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" (I think, I tend to get my Hendrix confused and I wasn't honestly listening to the lyrics at that point -- all about the guitars.) and Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine." Amazing. Outstanding. Incredible. There really aren't enough superlatives to cover just what a mind blowing experience it was.

I REALLY wish I'd brought my camera....