Review: Once again, Buffett brings paradise to Mansfield
BY PETER GOBIS SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
Friday, June 26, 2009 10:48 AM EDT
Jimmy Buffett performs with island-themed dancers. (Sun Chronicle file photo)
Fans leave their worries behind to party with their hero at Comcast Center
MANSFIELD - Look out for the LandShark, the pirate and traitor that he is - this Jimmy Buffett, who plunders the pockets of southern New Englanders every summer and then buys the naming rights to the Miami Dolphins Stadium!
So much for patriotism, pirates and parrotheads - Buffett hooked onto a mooring in Mansfield Thursday for the first of a two-show gig at the Comcast Center and true to form, the temperature soared above 60and the music was "Hot, Hot, Hot" for those who subscribe to a "twinkle your toes in the sand" philosophy.
Buffett turned 62 on Christmas Day, a day he undoubtedly spent in a lower latitude ("Changes in Attitude"), in a meditative frame of mind ("It's Five O'Clock Somewhere"), in close proximity to a pint of Captain Morgan ("A lot to Drink About"). Or so the legend goes about how contemplating the age of 50, he recounted some of his hopscotch lifestyle in the autobiography "A Pirate Looks At Fifty."
The man will stoop to any money-making manuever, restaurants, CD's, movies, a 100-or-so concerts a year (heading to London in July, Paris in September; and playing a free Barack Obama fundraiser last year in Florida), even now the hops and foam from his LandShark beer.
And while he's laughing all the way to the bank, Buffett throws one hell of a party - year after year. For two hours-plus, the "Summerzcool" Tour was the long-diagnosed, post-adolescent, dysfunctional night of bedlam - when work (if you have a job), the spouse, the kids, the mortgage, the neighbors, the in-laws, the yard work all get pushed aside.
From ukele-strumming Jake Shimabukro's concert opening "National Anthem" to Cape Verdean and Providence-based singer Ilo Ferreira's "Home Again," there were "volcanos" and "Rumblin Man" and "I Feel Like Going Surfing in a Hurricane" and a "Southern Cross" to bear.
Buffett has been inking and singing confessional songs for three decades and never wears a frown. He's never shown the slightest sign of discontentment - the mischievousness is apparent, or as he laments with a wink in his self sermon, "I know it's all my fault" while stumbling, barefoot over to the marina bar.
With a top 10 place on Forbes' list of highest-grossing entertainers and devoted legion of passionate parrotheads, Buffett keeps on singing half-baked tunes without altering his format or music. As his publicists plea, "he's a bard of hedonism, the sunbaked, can't-be-bothered-to-stir-from-this-beach-chair variety"
Does he even own a pair of shoes?
And his goofy staple of a song "Fins" is now the Miami Dolphins' theme song at LandShark Stadium, where he will perform at little or no cost to underwrite financing. Jeez, can Bob Kraft think of some "Revolutionary" jingle while you're standing in line to buy a "Cheeseburger in Paradise?"
So just remember on Dec. 6, after you've shoveled out the driveway and sit down to watch the Patriots play the Dolphins in Miami, the Mayor of Margaritaville is sitting somewhere with a wink in his eye.
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