CENTERblog

Bernstein in the Land of the Bears

by Lisa Maloney - Center Facebook Fan

Song-making is Dan Bern’s response to life. Some people sing, some people play music, some people write. Bern does all three, tapping his toes with so much vigor that his big, clunky boots turn into an instrument of their own. But Dan Bern is no ordinary folkie. Just as you lapse into the heady bliss of a good soul exploration through song, he throws in a nice little ditty about Osama in Obamaland. Except two songs have morphed together, and now Osama’s in Jerusalem.

Lest you think Bern is anti-Obama he throws in a few lyrics about the most recent President Bush too, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he’s singing in a notoriously red state. Then a heart-felt ballad about the longest tennis match in history relieves the pressure of potential political commentary. He’s just using figures we all know to paint a picture.

You probably know a guy like Dan Bern: Flannel shirt and jeans, big boots, facing life with a sly grin. Bern effortlessly fills the Discovery Theater as if it were a one-room apartment, so at-ease on stage that you realize his natural-sounding speech isn’t carefully rehearsed to sound that way. He really is just standing up there talking to you, and the audience responds by shouting greetings and little snippets of conversation back. It’s easy to miss the stagecraft that lets him share this easy-going persona, but you don’t make anything look this effortless unless you’re really, really good at it.

Give a skilled stand-up comedian a guitar and harmonica and he might write songs like Bern does, perform them like Bern does. But unlike your average comedy song that’s funny because it’s bad, Bern’s voice is beautiful and he makes playing two instruments at once look easy because--see above--he’s so dang good at it. And as much as he really can’t keep himself from prodding you with laughter just as you’re getting comfortable or starting to take him too seriously, Bern also can’t help but let the occasional deep insight through. Maybe that’s why we like him so much. Yes, he’s up there entertaining us, but he’s also watching us back.

With 23 Alaska performances under his hat on Saturday, 24 as of the Sunday follow-up, there’s a clear sense of mutual adoption. Alaska might not own the indefinable Dan Bern, but we’d sure like to keep him if we could.

Dan Bern

Whistling Swan Productions

Saturday, December 4, 2010 at 7:30pm

Discovery Theater