It's also close to fifty years since Aaron Neville's Tell It Like It Is delivered a hit that was, effectively, his bread and butter until the Neville Brothers shot to prominence. The passage of time, one might expect, would have taken its toll on that distinctive vocal tone, and while he's just a tad lower these days the melisma and vibrato are still there.
But it's a voice that needs breathing space, which it gets with the fraternal outfit where the four Neville Brothers share things around in the vocal department. Here, with brother Charles sharing a bit of the spotlight with some moody saxophone and a rather decent bunch of instrumentalists around him there was room for a breather or two, and he actually got to leave the stage during an impressive run through an instrumental that might not have been Caravan, but if it wasn't it was an almost identical twin.
A glance down the set list will reveal an interesting selection from what has become a reasonably extensive back catalogue, covering most of the obvious bases, very much the Aaron Neville set I'd have wanted to see if I was seeing him once, though I would have liked something else from My True Story in there.
Excellent band, front man in pretty good voice, slightly one paced, perhaps, but that's what he does, and he does it rather well.
Having been to the same venue for Elvis Costello & The Imposters the night before there was an interesting contrast in the demographics. The Dr. John/Aaron Neville crowd was noticeably older, and significantly less cross-generational and given the selections of material probably unlikely to change. One suspects that, should the opportunity to see either of them again in an hour and a bit setting neither set list is going to change all that much, which explains a conclusion that I'm not likely to see either of them again.
One wouldn't anticipate either of them making their way to Townsville or Mackay, and while they're both likely to be back in the country for Bluesfest, opportunities to catch them will depend on what else is going on around whatever times they're playing Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. Given the excuse to be in any of those centres around the time they're playing the possibility is there but it's not as if I'm tempted to see them at every opportunity because I know there's likely to be something very interesting on the set list each night.