Jack Johnson brings his mellow vibe to the Cruzan.(Photo by Thom Smith)
By Thom Smith
It’s 6 p.m. The South Florida sun is still hot enough to cook eggs on the pavement. Most performers would be chilling in their tour buses or having dinner at the Four Seasons. Not Jack Johnson.
Armed only with guitars, he and his old buddy G Love set up on his “village green” at Cruzan Amphitheatre and sang a few songs for the early arrivals. It’s a good move: He warms up a little and helps draw attention to the organizations whose booths rim the “green.”
Johnson literally uses green to live green. When he can, he rides a bike; when he can’t, his buses run on biodiesel fuel. From the show’s proceeds, he matches whatever the organizations on each concert’s village green raise, up to $2,500. Cruzan’s beneficiaries included Kids Ecology Corps, Surfrider Foundation, Trash to Treasure Creative Reuse Center, the local arm of Slow Food USA and Indian Riverkeeper.
“He’s wearing one of our shirts during the show,” Surfrider’s local vice chair Todd Remmel bubbled. “We sold out of shirts.”
Johnson’s presence also generated signatures for petitions to ban offshore drilling on Florida’s Gulf Coast and to stop construction of environmentally unfriendly breakwaters off Singer Island.
Johnson was just as happy to play for the few dozen on the village green are he was for 19,000 when he walked onto the the Cruzan stage at 9 p.m. Thursday. Simply, both are places to play, neighborhoods, large and small, in his community.
But with a venue as enormous as Cruzan, performing on the green is the omelet to the big stage’s scrambled eggs. Cruzan’s mass renders everything less significant. Even Jack. His music is not small, but it’s intimate. It’s why lovers prefer to make love in the back seat of a car than in a stadium.
Five years ago, Johnson’s bus stopped at the Mizner Park Amphitheatre in Boca, a band of five still wet behind the ears in touring terms. For a crowd of 2,500, Johnson’s laid-back style worked fine. It didn’t hurt that Jimmy Buffett dropped by for a couple of numbers.
Cruzan, however, is a different bowl of poi. It’s great for the bottom line and great for the eco-groups that reaped the proceeds and exposure . . . but not great for the fan who wants to hear, and listen to his lyrics.
Both Buffett and Johnson project beach party personas, fueled by boards, buds and beers. Buffett’s parties are wild, bayou-flavored, spring-break concoctions that inspire bead collecting. Johnson’s remain more reserved – akin to gathering around a fire at the beach house, grilling some ahi, singing a few tunes, taking quiet walks along the shore.
Buffett was small once. The original Coral Reefers were a band of one, but as his fame grew, so did the band. Three decades ago he played small halls like Miami’s Gusman Theatre with four backups. Now Buffett’s Tabernacle Choir numbers a dozen or more and can easily fill the stage at Cruzan. Instant Mardi Gras.
G Love and Jack Johnson.(Photo by Kirsten Smith)
Unfortunately for Johnson, Cruzan isn’t suited to singing songs around a campfire. Its sound system could make a piker out of Pavarotti. Johnson’s fans who know his lyrics can snuggle and sway and sing along, but newcomers to Johnson’s style were left to shrug and wonder what all the fuss was about.
Johnson’s songs don’t tell stories like Buffett or raise hackles like Dylan. He doesn’t screech like Steven Tyler or strut like Mick Jagger. He doesn’t reach the high registers like Roger Daltrey or belt bluesy like Otis Redding. Don’t look for the passion of a Bruce Springsteen, the eroticism of a Jim Morrison or the soul of a Ray Charles in his shows.
Folky but not quite funky. Perhaps an occasional Latin rhythm or reggae riff. No screams, no pain. He’s a surfer, but he doesn’t sing surfing songs. He’s Hawaiian, but he doesn’t include any Hawaiian music, although he did pick up a ukulele for Breakdown.
Finally, Johnson begins to fill the stage. With the arrival of guest Duane Betts (son of West Palm’s own Dickey Betts), the tempo and the mood were revved up with some hot licks on Mud Football. Betts left, replaced by Hawaiian Paula Fuga plus Dan Liebowitz from opening act ALO who brought along his slide guitar for three songs, and then G Love. They added some needed counterpoint. Too bad Fuga’s graceful gestures on Turn Your Love and Country Road weren’t expanded to a full hula.
Covers of The Cars’ Just What I Needed, inserted into Poor Taylor, Steve Miller’s Joker and Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at 40 during the encore added variety and change of pace. To use a Hawaiian surfing metaphor, the added energy was like the difference between Waikiki and the North Shore.
If you like someone who stands at the mike, strums a decent guitar and delivers, without flash, sincere, heartfelt poems – mostly free verse, not much rhyme – set to simple melodies, then Jack’s your man. Fundamentally, his show flows in streams – no – waves of consciousness. For many fans, his songs are “their songs,” reminding them of a first date or a special birthday.
He has been described as the “anti-bling.” Perhaps a better moniker would be earth father, as he helps a generation addicted to Facebook and various housewives who dance with Star Trekkies connect to a less obvious but more genuine and productive humanity.
After two hours and more than two dozen songs, many people left wanting more. Blame Cruzan – for its impersonal sound; credit Jack – for using its size for economic good.
Somewhere down the road, he’ll come back, and he’ll give them more. Perhaps in a slightly more intimate venue.
Anyone know a beach house where we could light a bonfire?
Jack Johnson brings the band and crew onstageto celebrate the end of this leg of his To the Sea tour.
(Photo by Thom Smith)