Yacht Rock Revue back-to-back at the Stone Pony Summer Stage
I had seen Yacht Rock Revue once before, when they opened for REO Speedwagon. What stuck with me was how professionally they approached the entire experience. It was a spectacle, and every person on stage seemed to have a role in it. As a photographer, that made them exciting to shoot.
So when I had the chance to see them again, this time headlining the Stone Pony Summer Stage, I was looking forward to it.
There is something about Yacht Rock Revue that has had me thinking a little differently about the shows I cover.
Most of the artists I photograph are playing their own music. That's one of the things I enjoy most about covering live music. I'm watching a band or an artist put their own songs in front of an audience, whether they're an established act or still trying to find that audience. Yacht Rock Revue is a different experience. They walk on stage with a catalog of songs that people already know and love, and their job is to bring all of that music together in one fresh show.
Yacht Rock Revue has built something very different.
Their show is centered around songs that already belong to an audience.
That audience showed up in a big way.
The Stone Pony Summer Stage sold out for two consecutive nights. That alone says something, especially in a summer when plenty of established acts have had a harder time filling venues.
And once the show started, it was easy to see why.
Friday night's 41-song set covered an enormous amount of ground. Toto, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Hall & Oates, Jackson Browne, Christopher Cross, The Doobie Brothers, America, Rupert Holmes, Whitney Houston, Elton John, Luther Vandross, Boston and plenty more all made an appearance. There were also acoustic versions of Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" and Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive."
It's a lot of music, and the crowd seemed to know all of it.
The people at the Summer Stage were more than fans. There were plenty of super fans in the crowd, many wearing captain's hats, including some that had been decorated with a pretty impressive amount of glitter and color. People arrived in large groups, and the whole thing reminded me of the community that grew up around Jimmy Buffett and the Parrotheads.
There is clearly a culture around this music now.
The production added another layer. The stage had a retro look that revealed more of itself the longer you watched. Vintage-style video cameras were set up for individual members of the band, and the large screen behind the stage gave featured singers their own close-up moments.
There was even a keyboard setup designed to look like a 1970s or '80s office. It was a fun detail, and exactly the kind of thing that gave the show its own personality.
Nick Niespodziani and Peter Olson are the obvious anchors up front, but Yacht Rock Revue works because there is so much happening around them. Kortney Jackson, who was featured early in the set, immediately caught my attention. She has a strong stage presence and was one of those performers who kept drawing my camera back toward her. I came away with a good number of photographs of her for exactly that reason.
That was something I remembered from the REO Speedwagon show. Everyone on stage matters. The musicianship is strong, the arrangements keep moving, and there is always somebody worth photographing.
That was true again in Asbury Park.
And that brings me back to where I started.
The Stone Pony Summer Stage is a place where I spend a lot of time photographing artists presenting their own music. That's what makes this particular show so interesting to me. Yacht Rock Revue walked onto that stage with songs written and recorded by other people, and two nights later they had a sold-out Summer Stage crowd singing those songs right back at them.
And in the end the reality is that Yacht Rock Revue is an original band!
Yacht Rock Revue Stone Pony Summer Stage Bill Baumann
