Berkshires arts reviews

August 24, 2007 performance, reviewed by Jamie Goldenberg.

(Editor’s note: see Ms. Goldenberg’s photos from the concert.)
This review really begins Thursday night around 10:30 when my phone rang. It was a favor/invitation/opportunity: the NewBerkshire.com photographer couldn’t make it to the JT concert at Tanglewood, and did I want to cover it? My first response was to giggle at the nickname, as the initials JT evoked for me the image of a teenage heartthrob (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) and not a musician my mother’s age.

However, ever eager to become a true Berkshireite, slowly working towards the status of “local,” and always up for an adventure, I decided a James Taylor concert couldn’t hurt. I admit my reasons may not have been venerable, but what happened was something amazing:

Friday night at Tanglewood, as I soaked in the late August evening and watched the waxing orange moon rise, I found myself surrounded by smiling people. Picnicking families, kids playing catch, the lawn was alive with warmth. I looked around, not a hipster in sight, and, a sigh of relief (what if one of them saw me here?!).

Suddenly, blue lights covered the stage and crowd and I was immediately spellbound. I listened, I watched, I photographed. The crowd was just as captivated as I was. James Taylor sang, Larry Goldings played keyboards, it was wonderful. A song or two into the first, shouts rang from a small section of the audience that they couldn’t hear the music. James Taylor joked with them: the crowd, his friends.

He told stories about Joni Mitchell and, I thought, maybe he could be a little bit cool. Then he told us, a few times, about how he was the first musician signed to the Beatles’ record label. Okay, I was impressed. But then, as he sang, about Scandanavian one-night stands, about seeing the world and wanting to come home, about something deeper than shiny Apple records, I really heard James Taylor, rather, JT.

He reminded us that life out there can be lonely, but that we always have friends and home. I looked around- everyone was still smiling. I was smiling. I wanted at that moment for life to be a James Taylor song.

Sure there was a fancy drum machine, impressive I am sure to the people who have heard his songs over and over. But the essence of his “one man band” show was not lost in all the accessories (on top of the drum machine there was a slideshow, a fantastic piano player, audio and video of the Tanglewood Festival chorus, a filmed Mexican horn section). No, for a JT virgin, it was Taylor’s music, his words, that I took home.

It was the orange moon and picnicking friends that accompanied him as he told about going to Carolina in his mind, it was the packed Shed and lawn that turned Sweet Baby James into a choral arrangement.

As I drove home from Lenox, through Stockbridge and down to Great Barrington, I scanned the radio dial, hoping perhaps that somewhere someone might be playing James Taylor. I got home and gushed to my friends about how wonderful the show was; about how I am now a JT fan.

Much to my surprise, I heard similar stories of conversion. My friend Danielle told me about how she remembered when she realized she liked James Taylor. My friend Dave told me about how he had come to like JT only afer he moved to the Berkshires. I guess it is just one of those experiences you don’t know about until you’ve had it- and I am glad I was lucky enough to have it, even if my mom said that I wasn’t “in the right demographic” — it seems James Taylor may just be timeless.