Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This week it’s The Commodores’ 1979 hit, “Sail On”:

Midway through his set at the O2 Arena in London on Monday night, Lionel Richie and his band played a string of Commodores hits, and they started out with this one, which for my money, is among Lionel Richie’s best songs.  I like Lionel in country mode–“Easy”, “Three Times a Lady”, “Deep River Woman”–and here is a shining example.

Experiencing a Lionel Richie concert was a pretty bewildering experience.  I’ve loved Lionel Richie since I was a little kid, and so seeing and hearing him live was a lifelong dream of some kind; as such, my expectations were high, but I was also a little apprehensive that it might royally suck.

It did not, reader, royally suck.  Lionel cranked out around two hours of nonstop hits–playing pretty much every hit song he’s ever had–with a band that was, as you (and I) would expect, super tight.  His musicians also performed dynamite backing vocals–no line of three background singers here (I’m guessing budget constraints), just a backing band that can sing as well as it plays.

But the bewildering part was being in a 20,000 strong crowd, watching and hearing and feeling the constant reactions to Lionel’s songs, and watching a set of music that pretty much never let up.  Lionel used the between song banter (which sounded totally rehearsed and yet somehow effortless) to rest his chops (and his voice only really started getting hoarse on the last couple songs, and this was the second night in a row in London) but when a song cranked up, it was a pretty relentless wave of energy until song’s end; and he didn’t always pause for banter, either.  The concert was two hours of unceasing nostalgia, and joy, and also two hours of unceasing good music.  It took me a day and a half to shake off the (emotional? musical?) overload.

The thing is, Lionel Richie was hardly the only nostalgia act I’ve seen this year; last fall I saw PiL, in June I saw Faith No More reprising their best songs for fans who hadn’t seen them in years, and in May I saw Slayer perform Reign In Blood.  Laugh all you want, but the fun, the silliness, and the quality–depending on your taste–of music was pretty much comparable across all four of these concerts.  And at half of them, I got to hear “Easy”.