Band: Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, Jon Herington, Keith Carlock, Freddie Washington, Jeff Young, Walt Weiskopf, Michael Leonhart, Jim Pugh, Roger Rosenberg, Tawatha Agee, Cindy Mizelle, Catherine Russell.
Only two acts this decade have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and also won one of the three major Grammy Awards. U2 is one, Steely Dan the other. The latter's Grammy win -- album of the year in 2000 for their reunion disc “Two Against Nature" -- bought Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who had stuck to '70s glory on reunion tours, a grace period to demonstrate their commitment to becoming again an active, working unit that tours and records in the 21st century.
The current Think Fast Tour links the end of the band's initial run with a handful of recent numbers, wholly focused on groove-oriented light funk tunes that Becker can talk-sing through. It is the most musically rewarding edition of Steely Dan since their decision tour in the mid-1990s.
Since the last Steely Dan album, 2003's funky but forgettable “Everything Must Go," Fagen has recorded and toured as a solo act, and Becker has released a solo recording ("Circus Money" in June). The intangible chemistry of the duo, not to mention the superior quality of the songs they do together, will always give Fagen and Becker a leg up on any solo projects -- yes, even “Nightfly" -- and the current show drives home that point quite well. That they play for more than two hours and devote only about half the show to the records the audience overplayed when they were in college in the 1970s is admirable. It's hard to say they have been this adventurous in the past.
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