Xcel Energy Center GM Jack Larson, Jimmy Buffett & his Mpls-bred wardrobe stylist Helen Hiatt -- she wasn't responsible for the custom-made Wild jersey/ Xcel photo
Was Tuesday's Xcel Energy Center audience the most sober crowd in the long history of Jimmy Buffett's touring? Or at least in Buffett's history in the Twin Cities?
Was it because it was Tuesday? The economy? The fact that tickets already cost as much as $136? Holiday budget stress?
At least the two women on either side of my seats were pregnant so we know why they weren't drinking. And I surprisingly didn't smell any reefer – a stark contrast to the Jay Z crowd on Saturday at the X.
Not that you can't have a good time at the Old Tropical Buffett if you're sober. It was a fun time, as my review indicated.
Maybe there were too many covers – from Crowded House to Crosby, Stills & Nash -- for some fans at the expense of such faves as "Why Don't We Get Drunk" (which has long been absent from his sets) and "Livingston Saturday Night."
Maybe Buffett is catering too much to the country crowd by tossing in Zac Brown's "Knee Deep" and Alan Jackson's "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," both of which hit records feature Buffett cameos. Whatever.
Twice on Tuesday, Buffett acknowledged Minnesota's own Bob Dylan for having performed Buffett's "A Pirate Looks at Forty" (most famously in a 1982 live duet with Joan Baez in Pasadena, Calif.). So Buffett said he was returning the favor by doing two Dylan tunes.
