Dan Bern

I went with Ben to go see Dan Bern on Friday night up at Cap College. I’d seen Dan Bern once before, out east, I think about 4 years ago now, where it was him and a guitar playing C’est What, if I recalll correctly. This time, it was him and a band – the band is called ‘The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy’, which is kinda fun. Seeing him with a band made me feel a little like I was watching Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street band – Dan Bern has that sorta blue-collar look and sneering/snarling voice like Bruce, and with the band, he rocks out in a folksy kind of way. And of course, with the Band, he played ‘the hits’. Of course, I wouldn’t know a Dan Bern hit from Adam, but the crowd sure did. And I found even I knew a couple of the songs, and was able to sing along when requested, which was fairly often. One thing I’ll say for Dan Bern – he can work an audience like no one else I’ve ever seen. Though come to think of it, Rob Wilson, who mines a similar artistic vein, is also excellent with crowds. I suppose that if you’re singing pointed, humorous songs, you need the engagement of the audience for it both to go over – hearing lyrics like:

means that you and the audience have to be on the same page, or you’d end up offending some and leaving others simply going ‘uh, what?’.