Is it cosmic coincidence that Steely Dan’s first UK tour proper since the passing of co-founder Walter Becker in 2017 commences on what would have been the guitarist’s 69th birthday, or is his old bandmate Donald Fagen starting to get sentimental? Surrounded by a crack squad of session players, the famously misanthropic keys and melodica maverick, now the group’s last original member, makes no mention of his late musical partner of 45 years, yet he doesn’t need to – a microphone left to stand empty in Becker’s memory says enough.
It’s a shame that Becker died just as the Dan began undergoing an unlikely revival among a new young generation of music fans, a smattering of whom are conspicuous among an otherwise mostly senior audience tonight. Rappers from De La Soul to Ice Cube, MF Doom and Kanye West have long been sampling Steely Dan’s sensuous grooves. A recent, wider renaissance for the New Yorkers and their yacht rock ilk has seen them referenced by everyone from Mac DeMarco to Thundercat.
While it’s difficult to imagine songs such as Green Earrings, with its overabundance of notes-dense virtuoso solos ever becoming exactly de rigueur again, much less Fagen’s distinctly self-abasing way with a lyric – outwardly breezy Philly soul number Dirty Work is essentially a dismal tale of getting used by a married woman – it’s little surprise to see contemporary artists taking what they can use from Steely Dan’s lush, skilful and yet horizontally laid-back compositions. Valid as some criticisms commonly levelled against the band may be – they do go on a bit – accusations of dispassion are patently unfair. Nobody could write a song as detailed, deft and downright funky as Peg without damn well meaning it.
The band’s defining album, 1977’s Aja, provides the spine of a broadly greatest hits set which wraps in a performance by “special request from a Glaswegian”, explains Fagen, of Deacon Blues – the song which inspired the name of one of the city’s best-selling bands – and gets loose towards the end with jazzy R&B flex Josie. Blues-rocking radio staple Reelin’ in the Years closes exuberantly, and even Fagen’s out of his seat before the song slams to a shuddering, awkward halt with an almost belligerently unnecessary drum solo, lest anyone get too carried away with all the fun.
• At Manchester Arena, 21 February, then touring.
