Caught in the Carousel

My friend, Cynthia, and I saw Big Star at the Fillmore on the 26th of October—great show, mellow, good vibe crowd. It was the same band as last time...Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens, plus Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow from The Posies on bass and guitar. Stringfellow had one of those new black and white Gretsch basses going through a big Ampeg setup; Auer had a Gibson 335 type thing. Chilton played a Les Paul double-cutaway that sounded fantastic, but it gave him tuning troubles. The band was using Fender twin reverb amps, which sounded killer. Chilton also had a black Strat with a maple neck, but he only used it on one or two songs. He kept on tuning up the Gibson, which slowed things down, but it was that kind of night anyway, very relaxed.

Chilton wore a black suit jacket, a white button down shirt, khaki trousers and black walking shoes. At first he had glasses on, and Cynthia said he looked like a college professor. He's very trim and still in good voice. They opened with "In the Street," and then it was one old fave after another, pow pow pow, punches of power pop in your face: "Feel", "I Am The Cosmos,” “The Ballad of El Goodo,” “When My Baby’s Beside Me,” “Thirteen,” “September Gurls,” Way Out West,” Back of a Car,” “Thank You Friends,” and in between there somewhere, the Kinks' "Till the End of the Day,” and also what seemed to be an impromptu jam on "The Girl from Ipanema."

The second half of the show wasn't nearly as powerful as the beginning; they should've saved some of those heavy hitters for the end. They did Todd Rundgren's "Slut," which Chilton wanted to say something about, but he smiled and said, "er...I'm not going to say anything about this song." People were yelling out all kinds of requests, including, "sing something in Italian!" Chilton seemed amused by the crowd. "Some interesting ideas," he said.

We were right up by the stage, right in front of Chilton's amp, which positively sparkled. Pardon the cliché, but I really felt the music just washing over me—especially the songs from the first album. Overall, it was a first rate show.

—Don Ciccone

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