This banjo picker is pretty funny

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Steve Martin performs with the Steep Canyon Rangers Wednesday evening at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg.

For a comedian, Steve Martin sure takes his music seriously.

And for a musician, he's a pretty funny guy.

Both talents were on display when Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers visited Winnipeg Wednesday night for a show in front of an excited sold-out crowd of 1,400 bluegrass and comedy fans at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre.

"It has been a longtime dream of mine to play bluegrass in Winnipeg, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, I feel one step closer to that dream," he joked during an opening monologue filled with one-liners.

He last played Winnipeg 40 years ago with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band when there were no highrises in the city, just a bowling alley, and they were paid with pelts, he said, before kicking things off with the speedy instrumental Pitkin Country Turnaround.

Martin, 65, isn't the wild and crazy guy he was in the 1970s, but he is still extremely funny, charming and self-deprecating between songs, poking fun at himself, his new career and his band, noting the concept of seeing him play original bluegrass music is akin to hearing there's a concert featuring Jerry Seinfeld playing the bassoon.

He explained he was playing the banjo in two styles: the "Scruggs" style, with three-fingers and fast picking; and the more melancholy, "back porch," claw hammer style.

The material ranged from up-tempo contemporary bluegrass filled with breakdowns to serious numbers to humorous ditties. He has been playing banjo since the 1960s and easily held his own onstage whether he was front and centre or off to the side, letting the Steep Canyon Rangers gather around the main microphone.

Vocalist-guitarist Woody Platt handled lead vocals for the sweetly nostalgic Daddy Played the Banjo and stayed on the mic for the love song Go Away, Stop, Turn Around, Come Back, harmonizing with mandolin player Mike Guggino. The Steep Canyon Rangers were given plenty of opportunities to show off their impeccable harmonies and musical skills throughout the 110-minute show. Martin introduced every member of the North Carolina quintet with an anecdote, noting they were an independent band before he hooked up with them for their collaboration, Rare Bird Alert, released earlier this year.

Martin even left the stage while the Rangers showed off two of their own songs halfway through the night, after pulling out a beer from the back of Charles Humphrey's stand-up bass.

"I don't think of them as my band -- I think of it as I am their celebrity," Martin said, before trading licks with banjo player Graham Sharp on The Crow, from his Grammy-winning 2009 album, The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo.

They got into some of the new album with Jubilation Day, a gospel number turned happy breakup song featuring lines such as, "Even your mom said you were nuts," and, "The sex was great, at least that's what my best friend's brother said," with Martin handling lead vocals while the rest of the band gathered around one microphone.

They showed off more of their vocal skills on an a cappella version of Atheists Don't Have No Songs, a potential single about how religious people have loads of musical inspiration to draw from, but there isn't any music for non-believers. The line "atheists have rock and roll" drew huge cheers.

Martin sat alone on a stool for the slow claw hammer song The Great Remember, then was joined by fiddler Nicky Sanders for Hide Behind a Rock, inspired by a banjo/fiddle collaboration on the album Flatt & Scruggs at Carnegie Hall.

"I always said I wanted to honour them one day, but I didn't want to pay them royalties, so I wrote my own," Martin said.

The 100-minute main set ended with a new song, Me and Paul Revere, written from the point of view of the American patriot's horse, earning Martin and the band a standing ovation. They came back for a two-song encore, ending the night with a spirited version of Orange Blossom Special, adding snippets of other songs, such as the Simpsons theme and the 1812 Overture, into the mix, earning another well-deserved standing ovation after Martin proved he is equally adept as both a musician as a comedian.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Concert review

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers

July 27, 2011

Pantages Playhouse Theatre

Attendance: 1,400

4 out of 5 stars