The Doobie Brothers –
Tuesday, April 9, 8:00 p.m.
$88, 76
There’s no separating the unparalleled legacy of the Doobie Brothers from their latest release World Gone Crazy. World Gone Crazy is another chapter in one of the great American music stories, but it’s neither comeback nor nostalgia. An exhibition of aggressive and emotional performances, evocative storytelling, unapologetic attitude and world class musicianship, the collection is its own justification.
In a sense, World Gone Crazy is an analogy for the Doobie Brothers as a whole. With founding members Tom Johnston and Pat Simmons, and 30 year-plus veterans John McFee and Michael Hossack, the Doobies have perfectly honored the band’s legacy with an offering that grows in unexpected new directions. Aside from a few years of inactivity in the mid-eighties, the Doobie Brothers have continued to perform, create and record for over 21 consecutive years. “The Doobies have always been about playing live,” Johnston says. “We’re not a studio hot house group and we’re not a concept album band. We’ve always just brought in the tunes we had, put them together and made an album. That’s the way it’s been from the very first album and that’s still the way it’s being done.” If World Gone Crazy is a microcosm of the (greater) Doobie Brothers, then the Doobie Brothers are as appropriate a projection of American music as can be found in one long running association of musicians. “This band represents a lot of American music styles,” Johnston says. “From the finger-picking stuff that Pat does – and John can do as well – to blues, jazz, rock and roll. By the time you get done you’ve got, to lift a song title from another group, an American band.”
Like the nation that spawned the many musical styles they’ve adopted, the Doobie Brothers’ deepest traditions are change, growth, striving and an abiding faith in the future. And so World Gone Crazy pays tribute to the Doobie Brothers legacy the most appropriate way possible … by moving resolutely forward.

 

Lewis Black –
Friday, April 12, 8pm
$58
Lewis is one of the most prolific and popular performers working today, and returns to the Stiefel for the second time after selling out his first show here. He executes a brilliant trifecta as stand-up comedian, actor and author. Receiving critical acclaim, he performs over 200 nights a year to sold out audiences.
Lewis’ live performances provide a cathartic release of anger and disillusionment for his audience. Lewis yells so they don’t have to. A passionate performer who is more pissed-off optimist than mean-spirited curmudgeon. Lewis is the rare comic who can cause an audience to laugh themselves into incontinence while making compelling points about the absurdity of our world.
Lewis was born in Washington D.C. and raised in Silver Spring, MD. Colicky as a baby, it seems he was destined to be angry and easily irritated. His mother, a teacher, and his father, a mechanical engineer, instilled in both Lewis and his younger brother Ron the importance of education and the necessity to question authority; lessons which have influenced Lewis throughout his private and professional life. When Lewis was 12, his father took him to his first play and he quickly fell in love with the theatre. This ultimately led Lewis to pursue a career in drama. Degrees followed from the University of North Carolina and Yale Drama School. During his tenure at UNC, Lewis first ventured into stand-up, performing at Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill. In 1996, his friend Lizz Winstead tapped him to create a weekly segment for a show she was producing on Comedy Central called The Daily Show. The segment, a three minute rant about whatever was bothering him at the moment, evolved into Back in Black. It became one of the most popular and longest running segments on the show and also created a long and successful relationship with the network. Lewis has written two best selling books, Nothing’s Sacred, Me of Little Faith and I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas. All garnered critical praise as well commercial success and spent numerous weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

 

For more information on these and other events coming to the Stiefel Theatre, please visit www.stiefeltheatre.org