I was looking forward to New Years Eve 1998 with Blues Traveler for quite a long time. There were many reasons for the anticipation; having been told they were not going to schedule any tours for 1999 was enough motivation to ensure my presence at the annual bash. Chicago was the location designated by John Popper and the Blues Traveler gang to be the “scene” to ring in 1999. This is a city that knows how to party, despite bitter cold temperatures, and a record setting snowfall starting the day AFTER the concerts, we partied “Chicago style” ! The Aragon Ballroom is one of those old style buildings that was built with careful consideration for it’s purpose. My friend Phil says a plaque at the entrance dated the building to the Nineteen-Twenty’s. The interior is a large dance floor which can hold about 4,000 standing, not dancing, people, with a balcony which forms a wide “U” for about 240 degrees around the back and sides of the ballroom floor. The balcony is shaped like some sort of castle or fortress, a look more Hollywood than authentic, but still cooler than plaster walls. The floor itself was designed by some master carpenters with bent boards rounded and parqueted to form an ever widening circle radiating from the center.

December 30th, 1998

The sound company tried their best to load the room for good sound even hanging the speakers from the ceiling rather than the typical on stage location of the fall tour. The sound quality inherent to this room makes it incredibly difficult to obtain optimal results, and while the Wednesday show (12/30) was rocky at times they found a good compromise by Thursday night. The sound quality of the tapes I have listened to seem to confirm this. Leftover Salmon was the opening act and their performance on 12.30 was in many respects smoother and better packaged than the Blues Traveler show. These guys played their patented “polyethnic slam-grass” with bubbling energy especially from the lead vocalist sometimes washboard playing guy. They played an hour long set that focused on the tunes from their recent recording and was a great way to get the crowd moving around before Blues Traveler took the stage.
Blues Traveler’s opening four songs were mainly from their most recent release Straight on ‘Til Morning. It was evident that the band had not played together for a few weeks and that the sound system was going to need further “tuning” to get the sound right. However, the band started to get some momentum going with an old fast paced favorite “Crash Burn” segueing in to “Closing Down the Park”. John Popper relates the story of a New York City park being shut down “basically for Real Estate purposes” by saying he was sure the people of Chicago could understand. He also did the first perfunctory thank you’s to Chicago for being the host of the annual black cat bash. The band had started to warm up during “the Park” and cruised in to the final four songs of set one with old favorites “But Anyway” and “Motherfunker” sandwiched between a new tune, “Her and Me” and the Beatles, “Come Together”. This selection of tunes was upbeat enough to get the crowd moving and keep them drinking the only beer of choice Miller Genuine Draft. A few of my buddies and I figured out that Miller must have a stranglehold on Chicago much like Anheuser Busch does in St. Louis. During the set break half the floor emptied out while people waited in line for the beer and bathrooms. This is one aspect where the venue’s age makes things uncomfortable as the bathrooms are small and very old, almost antiquated. I avoided the bathrrom area, opting to visit with the tapers and figure out which old friends had made the trip to Shy town.

The second set was markedly better played than the first, for which we had been given a possible reason for the lackluster performance; a good friend of the band had died earlier in the day following a lengthy bout with cancer. This certainly would explain the lack of motivation in the first set music. I will write more about this at the end of the review. They opened with a series of acoustic tunes with all three front players sitting on stools and Bobby Sheehan sporting an acoustic bass which was so huge he could barely stay on the stool. “Last Night I Dreamed” from Straight on Till Morning was played more up tempo than the album version and really grooved. The classic, 100 Years, followed with a shorter, tighter version than usual, not segueing in to the customary “Sweet Pain”(which is good for the die hard BT fans). They then jammed “The Way”, a yet to be released tune with a bluesy melody, in to “Mountains Win Again”. Both songs were treated with a maximum of care and musicianship. Acoustic versions of “Mountains Win Again” are rare, especially this one with Popper and Kinchla playing sweet guitar harmonies and Popper almost crying the vocals. This marked the highlight of the show for me.

They strapped on the Electrics for six more tunes including their epic, yet to be released, “Traveler Suite” which lasted 18 minutes, making it a short version of this beautiful opus. The song has seven movements which move along almost as a classical composition. As this is an unreleased tune, the names of each segment are not exactly known; we think it goes like this:

   1. Setting Sun
   2. The Storm
   3. River Flows
   4. Interlude (or Remembering Pancho)
   5. Tempest
   6. The Storm (reprise)
   7. The Dawn.

“Setting Sun” begins with a slow acoustic guitar melody followed by soft bass and drums. The chord structure builds to a heroic sounding theme using bright acoustic overtones. “The Storm” segues from “Setting Sun” and breaks in to a new chord structure and backbeat. The tonality is a lower key with the bass and guitars playing driving counter melodies which all seem to collect with the up front lyrics. Abrubtly changing tempo with the “River Flows” section in to “Remembering Pancho” which continues the story of our hero as he sings:

I May Never / Understand Her / Secrets
I Just Love To Watch Her Go.

“Traveler Suite” winds down with some appropriate reprises and ends with a quiet acoustic back drop. This tune may never get released, but it is an epic bout of song craftsmanship created by Popper and his mates.
The show ended on a somewhat melancholy note with John telling the crowd about their friend, Herb Bowen, whose passing was previously mentioned, emoting that Herb was, “One of the bravest guys I’ve ever met. You had to love him when you know him, and I’m not getting preachy or nothin’, but people like that are rare, and when someone like that goes, you gotta miss ‘em.” Blues Traveler then played the most heartfelt, flesh tingly version of ”Escaping” I’ve ever heard; John Popper was crying into the harmonica during the solos. Overall it wasn’t the best Blues Traveler show I’ve ever seen but it was nowhere near the worst; on a scale of 1 - 10 I’d rate it a 6+.