Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Three legendary octogenarian singer-songwriters performed in Kansas City during the past four weeks. Paul Simon behaved like a genial contrarian at Starlight Theatre on June 16. Bob Dylan played his customary role of diffident enigma at the same venue on the Fourth of July. Unlike his contemporaries, Graham Nash gave more than 1,000 nostalgic fans precisely what they longed for at Muriel Kauffman Theatre on Tuesday, July 14.
The positive vibrations and indelible melodies delivered by the planet’s last indispensable hippie indicated that the flower-power dream of the 1960s hasn’t been entirely vanquished. Nash and his taut three-piece backing band squeezed a potent batch of hits into a restorative ninety-minute set. (My ticket was comped.)
Paul McCartney aside, Nash is responsible for the rock era’s most substantive and enduring catalog of tender-hearted hits. Once written off as irredeemably soft, “Our House” and “Teach Your Children” are among the Nash songs that have become permanent parts of the cultural fabric.
Nash’s protest songs remain all-too relevant. Revivals of “Chicago,” “Immigration Man” and “Military Madness” were accompanied by pointed political screeds about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Interpretations of songs by Nash’s associates were just as rewarding, among them Stephen Stills’ “Love the One You’re With” and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” and Graham Gouldman’s “Bus Stop.”
The majority of the audiences at the Simon and Dylan concerts almost certainly went home thinking the aged icons would never perform in Kansas City again. Nash’s boyish enthusiasm left an entirely different impression. He may be 84 and nursing a knee injury, but Nash appears to be forever young.