Photos: Harper Simon & The Chapin Sisters; December 7, 2009; Casbah, San Diego

This entry was posted by t. loper on Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 6:23 pm.

Harper Simon, with a backing band that included the Chapin Sisters and members of Cat Power, The Elected, and the Beastie Boys, played San Diego’s Casbah on a cold, wet December night to an extraordinarily small crowd.

The size of the crowd surely had no correlation to the quality of Simon’s music, though; he and his band were tight, enthusiastic, and obviously talented. Particularly impressive was their slowed-down, double-lap steel treatment of “Shooting Star” (MP3), the excellent single from Simon’s self-titled new album. No, it wasn’t Simon’s fault that San Diegans can’t handle the wind and rain, and he took the less-than-stellar turnout in stride. Having just opened for Brian Wilson at L.A.’s Disney Hall the night before, however, he couldn’t help but admit that the Casbah crowd was hard to reconcile. Check out the photos below to see what you (probably) missed.