Pat Metheny Group kicked off their new tour in Toronto last night, and rocked this town.

Pat came out and started in solo on his guitar, kicking off the complete new album, about 70 minutes of a musical journey that covers the gammet of Metheny Group sounds and styles. It can be a long time to sit through one "song" for 70 minutes, but it went by fast, with the extremely talanted band moving from one instrument to the next and back again. They were working really hard to reproduce the album live and did a great job. This was probably the first time they played it live in front of a big audience, and they were rewared with about a five minute standing ovation. Pat and the boys were just beaming! I'm sure they were nervous before this major performance. Metheny commented about how hard it is to memorize such a long piece of music and perfrom it. I always thought that this feat of memory among musicians was something worthy of further study. After accepting the crowd's accolades and saying a few words, he stepped back up to the mike, waved his hand at the audience, and said "thank you, good night," and started to walk off. That got a big laugh from everyone.

The Group then proceeded to play for about another hour and a half what I would call a greatest hits set, sticking to tunes that everyone would know and you could hum along to, like The First Circle, a reworked version of James, The Roots of Coincidence, and a number of accoustic pieces. Lyle Mays was outstanding as usual, and seemed to be enjoying himself much more than I remember from past performances. Coung Vu on trumpet and vocals played with a purity that was amazing, and complemented Metheny's guitar playing and May's keyboards perfectly. The drummer got about a five minute solo and was friggin' amazing doing that Brazilian jazz playing. What a band, a what a great performance. I'm sure they will only get better as the tour progresses, so if you can go see them, this may be the tour to do it on, although any chance you can see someone of the musical caliber of Pat Metheny, you should put every other excuse aside and go. He's talented, he's a great player and writer, but more, he knows how to tell a story through music that carries the listener along from start to climactic finish.

Having seen Metheny in concert at least ten times if not more, I now have to say that he is my favorite musician, and while he gets categorized under jazz, he's much more than that. I doubt that there is a performing band out there that has more talent from start to finish than this man and this touring band. Metheny is about 30 years into a career that appears to have no bounds and continues to expand musically, and he can continue to convey sunshine and optimism through his universal music.

I guess I'm still pumped!