UPDATED - readers have corrections.

The first thought that occurred to me while leaving the Brown Theatre on April 28 after the Bela Fleck & The Flecktones show was that I was in serious need of additional superlatives. My current list is simply inadequate.

Now, I am not generally inclined to rave about musical acts, having seen a few over the years, including this one, at a much earlier time, but this crew really leaves me little choice. Coming at the end of a 135-show tour, they were as sharp as it’s possible to be with the material they were playing. Of course, every member of this band is a master player: Bela Fleck is a transformative figure on the banjo; Victor Wooten’s bass playing is staggeringly good and lightning-fast; his brother and drummer Roy “Future Man” Wooten plays a new version of his “Drumitar,” plus a supply of acoustic drums, including a cajon and, finally, Howard Levy, the “man with two brains,” plays intricate harmonica and piano simultaneously and/or alternately.

The tour was in support of their new CD, Rocket Science; cartoon images from the art from that album, including the red hippo from Cosmic Hippo, were projected on the wall; that constituted the extent of the visuals. Nobody paid them much attention, as it was not necessary to be visually entertained – the music was more than sufficient.
It is also the case that the Martin Mull comment that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” applies here; I might as well be dancing. Since the bulk of the show was instrumental and improvisational to a degree, it’s impossible to make sensible statements about the music other than of this sort: I was transfixed, following each musician as he soloed, taking the main theme and expanding on it, out and back, before handing it off to the next player, who did the same. Composition after composition. There was only one song with lyrics, sung by Future Man: “Sunset Road.”

Is the music jazz, is it fusion, is it pop, is it experimental? Yes. And more.

Rational notes would be these: the band was introduced by Dick Van Kleeck, who was responsible for the band getting together for a “Lonesome Pine” special. He got a round of applause from those who recalled those days and Van Kleeck’s booking of that great series. Victor Wooten put on a flashy show with his bass, some of which looked downright dangerous, all while not missing a beat. Fleck and Levy had a “cutting contest,” evoking the bluegrass days with Sam Bush and Newgrass and aided by the Wooten Brothers, who looked from one to the other in turn in a highly exaggerated, near-vaudvillian manner. It was amusing.

Victor Wooten put a dynamic loop pedal to interesting use, building a melodic bass loop by adding a single note at a time. Think of that memory toy called Simon, then imagine that it could be extended with a new, different note as it repeated the next sequence.

The group was called back for two encores and could have played a couple more, as the audience was eager for more. There was not even the usual rush for the exits – aside from a few Philistines – at the “usual” end of the concert. There was a goodly number of musicians in the close-to-sold-out house, as was to be expected.

In short, it was a concert to be remembered in a lifetime of concerts.