Some celebrities, after becoming famous, embark upon unexpected “side quests.”
Earlier this year, singer Harry Styles ran the Tokyo Marathon in an impressive 3 hours, 24 minutes. Beyonce is a real-life beekeeper; the touring electronic music producer DJ Diesel is better known as basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal; comedian Steve Martin is quite skilled on the banjo. Actor Bill Murray co-founded and owned the St. Paul Saints until a few years ago.
Speaking of that last guy…
Murray has also embraced a music career as of late, touring this year as Bill Murray and his Blood Brothers with noted blues musicians Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia. They’re accompanied by a band including Jimmy Vivino, who also moonlighted for years as the lead of late-night host Conan O’Brien’s house band.
The 10-piece band stopped at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis on Thursday night, with a setlist consisting of some Zito and Castiglia originals and plenty of classic covers, about a half dozen or so of which featured Murray on lead vocals.
Murray is perhaps best known for acting in movies such as “Groundhog Day,” “Caddyshack” and every Wes Anderson film between 1998 and 2021. He has occasionally sung on-screen, including a karaoke scene in “Lost in Translation” and an iconic Saturday Night Live role as Nick the Lounge Singer, but these roles lean into imperfections as part of the act: The music was in service of a bigger joke that Murray, too, was in on.
His performances with the Blood Brothers are not jokes, though. At the Orpheum, without comedy as a safety net, Murray occasionally came across like a bumbling bar patron roped into a high-stakes karaoke night. Early on in the evening, singing The Kinks’ “Tired of Waiting For You” and Larry Williams’ “Slow Down,” Murray was fidgety and ambled around the stage between verses. During other songs, on backup percussion (tambourine, cowbell, triangle, bongos), he had the vibe of a band member’s brother tagging along because mom said so.
But he found his footing near the end of the show, delivering actually quite solid performances of Wilson Pickett’s bluesy-soul “In The Midnight Hour” and the local-crowd-pleasing “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan. Whatever his light switch moment was, it came suddenly and late in the game, but seeing gritty, raw emotion pour through his voice and body language during the concert’s final half-hour was revelatory.
However, sound mixing problems plagued the show all night. The mics appeared to be turned up way too high, so the already-loud show became discordant and crash-y when all the instruments onstage — two full drum sets, three electric guitars, a bass, an upright piano, a keyboard, a saxophone, a mic’d-up harmonica and Murray’s backup percussion — were playing together.
A guitar riff by Castiglia that I’m sure was very impressive was almost completely indistinguishable, as was a sax solo I would have loved to hear. (Speaking of, the theater also kept a spotlight trained on Murray almost the entire night, even when he was not the main event: During that sax solo, for instance, Murray was well-lit in the back while the saxophonist was wailing away up front in half-darkness.)
In fact, the evening’s best-sounding song came when Vivino, leading the band in his own tune “Blues In The 21st,” gave up on using the microphones altogether. I’ll also say: During that song, Vivino’s main moment in the limelight, he was funnier and more engaging to watch onstage than Murray was.
To be perfectly clear, though, the whole night was fun, and opening musical comedian Dave Hill demonstrated himself to be a talented rock guitarist and pretty funny stand-up act.
Now, were more audience members there to see Murray than the pro blues rockers? Probably. But while we all waited for Murray to find his A-game, Zito, Castiglia, Vivino and the band — skilled, seasoned performers — had no problem carrying the rest of the show.
And the mostly full house Thursday night was into it: clapping, dancing in the aisles, shouting, “I love you, Bill Murray!” Murray is, first and foremost, a goofball, and seeing him on an unexpected side quest was a delight in itself.
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