Review: The Doobie Brothers – OVO Hydro

I’ve been a Doobie Brothers fan for a long, long time. So when they announced the full, OG line-up was hitting the road for the ‘Walk This Road’ tour, and that it was making a stop in Glasgow, tickets were purchased swiftly.

Now, I dunno if the chaps are in financial difficulty, but to call the production stripped down would be no understatement. The OVO Hydro is a pretty big space, so the lack of screens meant those in the cheaper seats would have benefited from binoculars. There was also no support band, meaning the doors opened 90 minutes before a single note was strummed. As cities go, Glasgow isn’t lacking talented acts that could have filled some of that space, or who couldn’t have pulled in the last 50 or so punters needed to fill the last empty seats.

Ok, so ‘Walk This Road’ is a no-frills experience, but it’s still The Doobie Brothers on stage, right? Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons, John McFee, and Michael McDonald still represent an absurd collection of talents with a discography to die for. Toss in a handful of first-class musicians to build out the band, and what could go wrong?

The Sound Balance – that’s what could go wrong

Reader, I don’t believe there was a single sound check made before the band hit the stage. Because, if there was, and somebody signed off on a bass-line best described as over-amplified, semi-rhythmic thunder, they should be put on a watch-list.

Ok, so bands feel under pressure to fill an arena with sound, and the easiest way to do this is to bring those bass beats. The result is a tendency for acts to sound heavier in person than on their recordings. That’s true of everyone from Crowded House to Primal Scream – making the latter in particular far more compelling in person than on the radio (for me at least.)

“I don’t believe there was a single sound check made before the band hit the stage.”

However, dialling the bass up so that McDonald’s iconic piano line in ‘What A Fool Believes’ is smothered by shapeless noise is unforgivable. Overall, I’d love to be able to tell you if these legends of music can still deliver their extensive list of hits, but it was only when drums and bass guitar were out of the mix that the audience could glimpse their remaining abilities.

Based on those glimpses of their capabilities, I’d say, as you’d expect, the guys have lost a few notes from their top registers, but nothing that would stop ‘Long Train Running’ or ‘Listen To The Music’ from raising the hairs on a fan’s arms. McDonald’s world-class, soulful voice retains a singular power, and if his breath control isn’t what it was, his gorgeous tone remains.

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The original Doobie Brothers also seem to be intact as instrumentalists, more than able to pluck and strum their way through their songbook. It would, however, be easier to admire Johnston, Simmons and McFee’s iconic feel for their chosen strings, and McDonald’s first-rate touch at the keyboards if…that’s right, they weren’t all being smothered with muddy bass.

To add, and I hate to use the phrase when talking of a favourite group of mine, insult to injury, the band also played for about 90 minutes and then left.

Yes, the chaps are all over 70, but the last time I saw Rod Stewart, you couldn’t get him off stage before curfew, ditto Alice Cooper. Now, not all septuagenarians+ are in the same shape, but maybe if The Doobie Brothers spent a little more time building a rapport with an audience (to say they lack patter is an understatement), their gig wouldn’t have ended quite so abruptly – or before everyone’s normal bedtimes.

In the end, it is hard to escape the impression that The Doobie Brothers came to dial in a performance, intent on relying on their legendary status to subsidise a lack of any other production effort. Frankly, I’d have been totally fine with that – if they had just come out and played their amazing songs as well as they are able to, without an enemy on the mixing desk.

As it is, whilst it was very cool to be in the same room as the OG Doobie Brothers quartet, it wasn’t worth the ticket price. There is, in the end, no excuse for not properly soundchecking your setup before a gig, no matter who you are or which halls of fame you have been inducted into.