Review: An Evening with GARRISON KEILLOR Is A Time To Remember

If there is anyone to whom a lonely nation could turn its eyes for comfort, GARRISON KEILLOR is the man.

Having retired this year from A Prairie Home Companion, he's on the road now, most recently at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, ministering to the audience with offerings of hope and encouragement in a world that may seem unraveling, regaling them with shaggy dog stories that end up being morality tales, all the while interspersing musings about the evolution of his career, the inspirations that led him to radio, and the passages from one stage of life to another.

He enters the stage knowing full well the mood of the attendees in the wake of the presidential campaign. In a brilliant maneuver, he engages the audience in a sing-along. There is joy in harmonizing with hundreds. It's wistful and nearly tear-inducing as he intones a medley that includes My Old Kentucky Home, Amazing Grace, God Bless America, and even a Beatles song. It's the voicing of Americana and of faith and of memories when folks are uncertain about what is becoming of America. It sets a tone and defines a safe zone for reflections on times past and present.

He has history to which he can hearken and thus offers encouragement that good things may emerge from the ashes of a house that's burned down, metaphorically speaking.

Becoming 74, he turns a critical eye to the manners and trends of the day, from the fixation with smartphones and tattoos to the ignominies of air travel. He offers candid commentary about the accoutrements of aging from the way people address a senior to the rigor of the colonoscopy.

If he's posing as a curmudgeon, sanctifying the good old days and converting us to nostalgia, he does so with a nearly perceptible twinkle in his eye. He understands that the times they are a changing (inserting a delightful riff on Bob Dylan with whom he claims to have been a college classmate) and offers prescriptions for managing the turns of life's wheel of fortune ~ you know, the simple but reverential things like engaging with the therapeutic effect of the outdoors and smelling the roses.

Keillor's concoctions are exquisitely designed and delightfully delivered. As he navigates between biography and commentary, shuffling along the stage in a stream of consciousness reverie, he reveals why he is unequivocally one of the great storytellers our time and a National Treasure. And for a glorious two hours that culminates in another sweet sing-along, he has seeded his audience with grains of wisdom and hope.

His must see solo tour continues through May 2017.

Photo credit to Erik Hageness