The Riverstage - Sat Feb 27

Lots of poncho-clad punters pepper the hill that surrounds Riverstage, as rain quite rudely contradicts the smooth sunlight strains of yacht rock kings McDonald and Scaggs. First, The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band satisfy the genre closest to the heart of their namesake, and which most informed early Fleetwood Mac - blues, silly!

But I’ve come to forget about the rain and be sonically transported to a world where I’m sipping pina coladas on my boat under gentle afternoon sunlight. In 1978. Michael McDonald is the man to take me there. With a super slick band, McDonald’s unmistakeable husky vocals are a treat. From Motown covers to Doobie Brothers classics Takin’ It To The Streets and What A Fool Believes, McD delivers AOR heaven.

Go through your parents’ (or grandparents’) record collections and chances are, you’ll come across a copy of Silk Degrees, the 1976 album Boz Scaggs recorded with a gaggle of musicians who went on to form (yes!) Toto. Fast forward to 2010, and he’s still a smoothie, despite not playing two of his biggest hits We’re All Alone and What Can I Say?. That said, he DOES do 4KQ standard Lido Shuffle and the chilled-out disco funk of Lowdown. He encores with an ornate blues jam, pleasingly reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond, leaving us squelching back to our cars through wet Botanic Gardens grass.

MATT THROWER

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