Review - Seal @ the Mountain Winery (7/19/18)

Seal @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating)

This is the absolute best time of year to see a show at the Mountain Winery and last night’s performance by Seal was truly special as witnessed by the near-capacity crowd who made the trek up the hill. Seal last performed here in the Bay Area almost exactly a year ago, again on the Mountain, and here’s hoping that this becomes an annual tradition moving forward. Bay area native, Andrew St. James opened the night with a quick 30-minute Dylan-esque set that featured Andrew on guitar and vocals, and was backed with a solo bassist. For those interested, he’ll be playing at the Fillmore on the 28th with a full band and you can find more info on that show here.

So unlike last year, where my only minor complaint was that it was a relatively short set, this year’s show stretched nearly 2-hours and had Seal performing hits from early in his career and included my all-time favorite, “Whirlpool”, while also heavily promoting his most recent release, Standards (iTunes), which is as the name implies, a set of classics re-arranged and performed by Seal. Over two-thirds of the set last night was made-up of cover songs, most of which are also featured on that album, and Seal was backed by a 6-piece band comprised of a pianist, percussionist, drummer, guitarist, bassist and trumpeter.

Seal @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating)

In between songs, the always charismatic Seal shared stories and cracked jokes… He mentioned how he always asks the fans to sing-along on Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, and yet no one ever does. Asking rhetorically, ‘why did we pay for a ticket if you’re asking us to sing? We paid to hear *you* sing’ which left Seal sounding defeated, replying “that’s OK, I’ll sing alone.” Another comical moment occurred just before “It Was a Very Good Year” when a woman in the upper deck yelled down to Seal that she loved him… He stopped short and began to tell the audience of the occupational hazard involved when fans scream out and joked that he’d need a minute or two so he could ‘get back into character’ which so many of the classic covers require him to do.

If you follow Seal on Instagram, you’ll already know what an avid runner he is, and in another comical moment he mentioned how we went out for a trail run the other day before his Hollywood Bowl concert. After the run, because he’s getting older, he iced his ankles. But instead of only doing it for 15 minutes, he kept the ice on for an hour which resulted in extremely swollen ankles… a perfect segue into “That’s Life.” With the majority of the ‘standards’ now behind him, Seal began the transition to his own material and was handed an acoustic guitar by one of his roadies. While taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves, his backing guitarist fiddled with a bit of a blues line, and in doing so, prompted Seal to deviate from the night’s setlist to perform Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House”, and admitted that they hadn’t planned to play that one tonight — it sounded great, and no one would have known that it wasn’t originally on the setlist.

Seal @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating)

“Kiss from a Rose” led off Seal’s originals, and was followed by the closest rendition to his 1991 Church Studios acoustic performance of “Whirlpool” that I’ve ever heard. Just thinking of that song still gives me the chills and to hear him perform that song acoustically last night was just fantastic.



“Prayer for the Dying” and “Killer” continued his own ‘classics’ before the band pulled out another cover, this time of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle.” The trumpeter who had taken a break from the stage after performing on the first chunk of ‘standards’ returned for “Move On Up”, and Seal closed out the main set with “Life on the Dance Floor” which had everyone out of their seats.

To close out the night, Seal’s encore included his own twist on David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” and his last monologue thanking the audience for coming out, hoping that he’d been able to give us an hour and 45 minutes of escapism, and talking of how the world’s a little crazy right now… how it’s easier to be less compassionate when you haven’t met those in need, easier to hate when there’s a distance between you and those different than yourself; and so what we need to do is to be close to people… maybe even get a little “Crazy”?

Seal @ the Mountain Winery (Photo: Kevin Keating)

What an amazing night and I feel lucky to have been in attendance for what was easily one of the best shows of 2018. Fingers crossed he’s back next year!

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