Review: TRAIN at MAD Amphitheater in El Dorado with Special Guest Edwin McCain

In the past week, I have seen many college students at OBU bustle around the halls of the different departments, all vaguely identifiable with the distinct schools they call home. The first-week-of-classes air is always abuzz with extroversion, always abuzz with the pretension of new students eager to establish themselves, not to mention that of those returning students who yet find themselves caught in their love for academic pedantry. It was because of this dreary, circumspective view of the lower classmen that I was thankful for my last visit to the Murphy Arts District on August 27th. And this finale, reader, was a big one: that of the prolific, well-established (if not autumnal) Train. I was looking forward to this performance for several weeks this summer, and the build-up was nothing if not climactic. 

Despite the apex nature of the performance, I must admit I showed up rather late. After seven hours of class on Wednesday—that last thirty minutes of ensemble rehearsal was capital-B-brutal—my stomach had persuaded me to grab some McDonalds before making the hour drive to El Dorado. After parking my truck and praying that it would not get towed, I made my trek to the front gates. As I crossed the street, I noticed a bright melodic saxophone bouncing off the walls, filling the nearby streets with reverb unprecedented. As I would later find out, the saxophone was attributable to multi-instrumentalist Craig Shields. 

There’s a special reason that I’m infinitely grateful that I didn’t completely miss this saxophone performance. After several classes in music at Ouachita Baptist University, most students notice a distinct vocabulary crop up: words like phrasing, texture, mood, tone, etc. But in my opinion the most unexpectedly formidable, the most absurdly cruel, jargonish words is one that seems rather inconspicuous: color. Musical color (or timbre) is the unique quality of a sound. Different instruments, even when playing the same pitches, have different intensities, volumes, and durations, and the combination of these different characteristics composes an instrument’s color. Applying this definition of color, however, can be notoriously hard. In fact, I have always had trouble distinguishing music color; it's not like I’d never been able to identify before, but I’ve definitely been skeptical of the concept as a whole—as well as some of my peers, who seem to pick up the concept suspiciously quickly. 

That is, until I heard this angelic saxophone bounce royally off the walls of the Haywood Hotel on Washington Avenue. This was, by far, the most revelatory instance of musical color I had ever experienced in my life, and I hate to sound that dramatic, but it is absolutely true. It seized me in a way that stole my train of thought, and the sound was inseparable with color in my mind. I find it very tempting to compare it to the fugitive values of the back of a CD, or to the scandalously unacademic Fortnite sky-diving contrail. CD’s and unacademic contrails aside, Shield’s playing was transcendent, even while bouncing off of the walls for a chronically late intern such as myself.  

Unfortunately, an elderly herd of six other audience members showed up late and took an ungodly amount of time at the metal detectors, so I was too late to hear Shields up close and personal. That being said, security was patient and efficient with us fashionably (very) late folks, elderly or not. Taking my seat, I watched Edwin McCain warm up the crowd with a very soulful soul-patch… or maybe a goatee… He never stood still long enough for me to tell the difference. He wore classic jeans and a T-shirt which showed off shoulders fit for an Olympian. From what little I saw of McCain, I regretted the part that I didn’t. He was a energizing and electric, and I was dejected when I saw him wave farewell to the crowd, quickly walking off stage.  

Watching the busy groups of tech-wiz’s zip around the stage to prepare for the main act, I figured I should take care of some business myself—that of going to the bathroom and ordering drinks before the show. And as a side note, I must say I’ve become very acquainted with the Murphy Art’s Districts bathrooms over the summer because I, embarrassingly, have a miserably tiny bladder. And as a self-certified bathroom aficionado, its pleasant to find that a bathroom is cleaner than normal; however, it’s almost intimidating to find the consistency of cleanliness that the Murphy Arts District puts forth. After showing up 30 minutes late, the bathroom still maintained its spotlessness, even though droves of grown men had undoubtedly incited unfathomable stenches unfit for any nose, even their own. At a certain point this summer, I began to question my own cleaning skills; how could the custodians possibly keep these bathrooms so clean? Is there some custodial school that I don’t know about? How will my back-up plan of being a custodian (that is, if being a critic doesn’t work out) ever work out if I’m competing with custodians like this? 

As I stood in line to get a drink, anxious about my future vocation, I thought it might be a good idea to get two shots instead of my normal, a vodka cran. As I peered around the snake that was the liquor-line, I saw the bartender doing bartender-ish things, like shaking shakers with blurry speed, laughing at customers’ terrible jokes, and serving customers at the ridiculously quick rate of a customer per minute (10 seconds if they ordered something like a beer). There were around 10 people in front of me, which probably meant I had around five minutes until it was my turn to stumble over my words to the pretty girl at the counter. At some point, the waiting liquor line realized that someone thought it would be funny to play songs that had a long build-up (i.e. Collin’s “In The Air Tonight”, Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”) and then switch the song right before the beat drop. It certainly was funny—watching people realize the antic was very amusing.  

Before I knew it, it was my turn to order. I ordered my two shots and dismayingly got carded; she said it was that I had a young face, and I smiled, because I know for a fact that it was rather because ordering 2 shots is a stupid, prepubescent thing to do. That being said, it definitely didn’t come with a prepubescent cost; I nearly fainted when I saw the exorbitant $26 charge. Of course, I paid it, because I’d rather die than admit my age by changing my order after she’d already given me my drink. I tried to walk away as nonchalant as possible, looking at the tiny $26 dollar drink I held in my trembling hand. As I sat in my seat, I asked ChatGPT—I’m starting to test out the waters of generative AI, but by no means do I consider it a substitute for actual research—why my drink costed so much. The answers I got seemed reasonable, but there’s a big difference between an answer that’s reasonable and an answer that helps me justify my stupid purchase. I took it all in one big gulp and came a hair’s breadth from spewing all $26 dollars into the primped hair of the woman beside me. 

The entrance of Train was, to my taste, perfect. He used the audio of a literally locomotive departing from a station, huffing, chugging, the whole nine yards. It was intuitive, anticipative, and exciting. Lead singer Pat Monahan wore all black, or the endearing concert black if you’re a fellow band student. His hair was iconically crazy, as every other picture I’d seen of him before seeing him live. Although I have a soft spot for the wretched and unforgettable concert black, Butch Walker (guitarist) by far took the cake for best dressed. He wore black slacks and shiny loafers, which made his stark, hot pink socks pop out at you. He also wore a black blazer, which he would eventually shed to reveal a bold sleeveless knitted shirt. To top it all off he adorned his neck with a gold chain.  The bassist, Hector Maldonado, wore a timeless leather jacket with notable flashes for silver metal on his fingers and neck. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really get a good glimpse of Matt Musty (drummer) or Jerry Becker (pianist/keyboardist), although I’m not afraid to admit that Musty sported a thick yet unassuming mustache which has, terribly, made me consider for the slightest instant growing out my own.  

The vocals were familiar to me, let alone familiar to the droves of old-head Arkansans who jumped at a chance to see Train so close. Butch Walker gave numerous incredible solos which hardly sounded redundant, even in their frequency. Several items were graciously thrown from the stage to the crowd, such as guitar picks, T-shirts, drum sticks, and large inflatable balls meant to be bounced around by the crowd, all to be deflated in about 5 minutes due to the relentlessness of middle-aged dads so eager to demonstrate their manifold arm days at Anytime Fitness by punching the ever-loving sense out of these oversized beach balls. They piled on top of each other—or at the very least, leaned considerably out of the range of their personal space—to get a chance to deliver a K. O. to one of these poor spheres. This was by far my favorite sight throughout the night. 

The musicality of Train was about as good as you’d expect from a group of well-established musicians; I’d rather not go on about what you probably could’ve told assumed. More importantly, I wanted to end my entry with what stuck with me after the night. When they were about to leave, Pat Monahan gave a very transparent statement to the crowd, to which I’m sure they could relate. He said something to the effect of, “When I was younger, I would have ended the show right now… but I just think I’ve gotten too old for that shit.” And although this seems paradoxical—if not blatantly contradictory—its so desperately indicative of something I can’t quite place (both in essence and in organizational context of this essay). All this to say, I left Train feeling deeply touched by the Murphy Arts District, even if I paid $26 dollars for my drink. 

As a sendoff for this summer, I emphatically request that you visit the Murphy Art’s District’s Calendar. They always have Great Performances to look forward to at reasonable prices. Upcoming performances to look out for consist of Ashley McBryde and Mike Eli on October 2nd and October 22nd respectively. And let’s not forget about the performances of MAD Hatters Dueling Pianos and Trey Johnson in MAD House 101, the Murphy Arts District’s high-end restaurant and bar (locals know well to keep an eye out for these names on the calendar). To make myself annoyingly clear, please visit their calendar, if not to support small artists, then to afford yourself sometime to get away from the stress of the cult of productivity (you wouldn’t believe how much one concert can recharge your social battery). All photography credits go to Greg Owens of Owens Image & Design.