Review: Al Green at the Midland

Al Green

The Midland

Better than: The time I took my first communion in front of the full congregation, knowing damn well I didn’t believe any of it.

One thought kept coming to me throughout the 70 minutes that a jittery, Jesus-praising, lady-hugging, greatest-hitting, half-singing, soundman-berating, set-list-shredding ghost of the Rev. Al Green doled out a set more perfunctory than a La Quinta breakfast bar. Seeing Green at the Midland really was like going to church.

Not in the sense of some soul-sweat baptism. Or because of that the ladies-I-once-sang-about-bagging-are-now-Jesus con he’s been running ever since he stopped writing classics about his contradictions and instead just raised up a church atop them, helter-skelter. It’s not even because his most effective singing all night came on “Amazing Grace,” the rare Green God song that’s never been about sweet-talking someone into putting out.