I must admit I didn’t know much about Laurel Canyon until Florida Studio Theater “informed” by staging music created there. It seems this music and its creators produced admirers (and present performers like BuffaloRome) in a Los Angeles L.C. area above Sunset Strip. Now Michael Visconti and his band bring back the songs and spirit of L.C. in the 1960-’70s. If you liked them then, you’ll like them at FST’s Court Cabaret. Or maybe value discovery.
Michael Visconti is the major narrator about the times and their songs. He plays a guitar and sings centrally and clearly at the downstage microphone. On house right performs his fine guitarist buddy, Miles Aubrey. On house left is jumpy, raucous keyboarder Mark Schaffer, who displays his devotion to songs by Crosby, Stills and Nash. He’s also hot on some of Joni Mitchell’s.
Act I’s most audience-recognized songs are “Turn, Turn, Turn” and “California Dreamin.’’ They are performed with respectful reverie. There’s a jumping “Take It Easy” and the three men each doing an all-out individual job, though working together, on the end of Act I with “Love the One You’re With.”
In Act 2 the guys wear the same jeans and weathered flannel shirts, reddish with black and specks of color, that they wore in Act I. Mark Schaffer never loses his dark, brimmed cap, even when he jumps a lot or runs down to center stage to be with the others. Not much thought seems to have been given to costuming two different decades (although the jeans may be considered to be dateless fashion).
Act II offers the popular “Heart of Gold” with appropriate gestures delivered and perhaps the most popular overall song, “Desperado.” There’s a rather long “Cinnamon Girl” but it may be better than in the 1970s. Before Act II’s end, it’s not unusual for an audience to be clapping to favorite tunes.
A wonderful encore, loved by the opening night audience, made up for a brief lull in the regular program brought about by an audience member’s medical emergency.
If there’s anything to be wished for in a typical Buffalo Rome performance, it’s variety. Every song seems to be done in much the same manner and sound much the same. Even volume. Luckily, there’s illusion of variety here in Andrew Gray’s continually changing lights on and the colors of curtains that form the backdrop of the relatively small Court Cabaret stage.
