In the late ’70s, when I was a struggling loser just out of college and my brother Kurt was still in high school, we would spend considerable time in the bedroom we shared in my parent’s St. Petersburg home.
He was a budding drummer; I was a future music critic (but didn’t know it at the time). We’d while away hours listening to music, with plenty of focus on Steely Dan. When Kurt finally mastered the Steve Gadd drum solo on the middle section of “Aja,” we rejoiced together.
So it was particularly gratifying that Kurt was in town with his family from Tennessee for a few days when Steely Dan played Ruth Eckerd Hall last night. Big brother/little brother hitting the Dan together. He’d never seen ’em. Doesn’t get much better than that.
I suppose Fagen, Becker and company could’ve disappointed, but it wasn’t likely. As it turns out, it was another entirely worthy Steely Dan show, the third in the Bay area in consecutive years, and the second straight at Ruth Eckerd (to what looked like a packed house).
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2008.