Steely Dan's surreal 'Today' show concert, 25 years later
When Becker and Fagen met Couric and Roker
Twenty-five years ago, Katie Couric’s chirpy voice echoed among the buildings surrounding the Today show’s street-side Studio 1A in Rockefeller Center, bringing word of the first album of new music by Steely Dan in two decades.
“The question is, What took so long?” Couric asked Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. “Twenty years!”
“Well, we were just being thorough,” Becker explained. “We didn’t want to leave any stones unturned.”
“We wanted to think about it for about 17 years before we actually did it,” Fagen added. “Make sure, you know, that we were thorough.”
What followed, as Steely Dan kicked off Today’s summer concert series, was one of the more memorable forced unions in broadcast television history: A band of downer surrealists performing songs about porn stars (“Peg”) and drug peddlers (“Kid Charlemagne”) and unrepentant junkies (“Jack of Speed”) and devious businessmen (“Black Friday”). All of it blasted across the apple-pie network airwaves before most Americans had eaten their Cheerios.
A quarter century later, Steely Dan’s appearance on Today isn’t remembered as much for the awkward dissonances between medium and message. Scroll comments beside clips of the concert on YouTube and social media, and you’ll see the show being held up as a snapshot of a relatively rosy patch in American life—a moment of unadulterated joy just before the nation tipped into darkness.
it is may 5th, 2000. you are in the crowd at 30 rockefeller plaza watching steely dan perform “peg” on the today show. al gore is up in the polls. a few miles south, the twin towers stand tall, a potent symbol of the might of american capital. everything is going great
Basking in the glow of Y2K optimism from a cherry front-row perch was a Danfan named Evan Goldfine. The bleary-eyed 21-year-old had arrived outside the studio before dawn. And for the coup de grace, he was sporting a tee on which he had scrawled “Steely Dan T-shirt” (get it?). It didn’t take long for the cameras to spot the goateed Goldfine, and by the end of the four-song set he had gotten some high-energy face time with jolly weatherman Al Roker and even booked a guitar lesson with Steely Dan’s then-new axman, Jon Herington.
Over the phone recently from his home in the New York suburbs (“just a few miles from Scarsdale!”), Goldfine shared his memories of that fateful morning. What follows are his recollections of Steely Dan’s Today show appearance, in his own words.
I was known as “the Steely Dan guy” in college. In May 2000, I was nearing the end of my senior year at Rutgers in New Jersey. And 1996 to 2000 was not a hip time to be into Steely Dan. I would get shit for it.
After graduation, I was going to work on the West Coast for the summer, and I knew I was not going to be able to catch Steely Dan on the Two Against Nature tour. The Today show appearance—this bizarre one-off show—would be my only chance to see the band that year.
I went up to the city the night before the show with my girlfriend at the time who was also a Steely Dan fan. We slept on the floor of my sister’s dorm at Barnard, knowing that we’d have to wake up before 4 a.m. to get there in time. What I didn’t know was that Barnard was celebrating what’s called Orgo Night, which is the night before all the organic chemistry exams. They had the marching band playing in the quad at night to keep everyone awake to level the playing field. We probably slept for an hour, so we were in this weird, liminal state going to Rockefeller Center.
We got there at around 4 in the morning and managed to get up front where we wanted to be, near the stage. I was so tired, but we were also really hopped up on the excitement of being there. There was a soundcheck super early, around 5:30 or 6 a.m., and I couldn’t believe how close the band was to us, like 10 feet away. And then more people started filling in, and you definitely got a sense of who was there to be on the Today show—the most generic, normie TV show—and who was there to see Steely Dan. Amid all the Midwestern and Southern tourists who came to hold their signs and wave hello to their relatives back in whatever state they came from was a scattered bunch of weirdos who had come to listen to a guy singing about swindlers and creeps and drug dealers and pornographers. There was this one guy, a true eccentric, who you can see on the YouTube video. He was dressed in black leather, had a bouffant, and talked like Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons. He sang along to the songs at, like, 75-times speed.
Then the broadcast went live, and at first it was all about Matt Lauer being in Norway for the “Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?” segment. The show was doing an “Incredible Edible Egg” promotion for the American Egg Board, and they were throwing these little squishy egg-shaped toys out to the crowd, and people were going nuts. Looking back on it now, I’m reminded that people were so excited to simply be on TV. I guess it was more novel back then. No one had smartphones. Remember, this is also the era of Total Request Live in Times Square, which was down the street.
Then Katie Couric, America’s little sweetheart, began interviewing Walter Becker and Donald Fagen on stage. I remember thinking, They shouldn’t be talking, those people! It just didn’t make sense.
The year before, I had worked as a camp counselor, and the kids got to decorate shirts, so I decided to make a Steely Dan T-shirt that said “Steely Dan T-shirt.” On the bottom I added, in smaller letters, “Cheap Version.” So I’m wearing that shirt, and I’m half awake, and weatherman Al Roker was rolling around and being really excitable with the fans. He got right in my face and screamed, “Steely Dan!” I shouted back at him, “Weather!”
The music was great, of course. I made nice with one of the tour production people, and she took a liking to us. I inquired about souvenirs, and she ended up giving me the setlist. In the soundcheck they had “Jack of Speed” and “Kid Charlemagne” in a different order. They played “Cousin Dupree” during the soundcheck, but it didn’t make it to air. And I’m wondering if that had to do with the Today show producers saying, “You can’t do this one.” That’s my hunch. The band did “Black Friday” last, and for some reason Florence Henderson from The Brady Bunch was there introducing the song. It was completely surreal!
This was among Jon Herington’s early public performances with Steely Dan. Afterward, I went up to Jon, and I said, “Do you give guitar lessons in New York? I’m going to be moving here in a few months, after I graduate.” He gave me his number, and I ended up taking lessons with him on and off for 12 years or so. He’d say, “If you want to go to the Steely Dan show, just let me know, and I’ll give you a backstage pass.” There were times when I saw Susan Sarandon or David Crosby backstage. I talked to [saxophonist] Cornelius Bumpus, who was a strange man but a really beautiful player. I never saw Don and Walt backstage. Either they left the place early or had their own area.
After the Today concert, my girlfriend and I wandered over to Central Park. I had the New York Times crossword puzzle with me. We started to fill it out, and I passed out. She told me later that I was snoring. We had this up and down summer together, and we saw each other in New York and New Jersey and Israel. Now she’s a prosecutor with the Manhattan D.A.
Looking back on the show again 25 years later, it makes me realize how much has changed. Walter is gone. [Pianist] Ted Baker is gone. Cornelius is gone. At that time, I was only 21. It felt like the world was full of promise and all these things could happen to me. I was with my girlfriend in New York City. 9/11 hadn’t happened yet, and I was watching my favorite band play on live TV. It does now feel like the end of something.
Something really changed about New York and the whole country after that, and it kind of tipped off all this stuff we’re now living through. In 2016, after Trump won, I had a buddy tell me, “I think Osama won.” And that line kind of stuck with me. Everything that happened since 9/11 has made this a very different time—the Iraq War and the War on Terror and the feeling like we were going into the future with the Obama era and the backlash to that and the internet and everything that we are experiencing now.
You can see how different the culture was when you watch that 25-year-old clip from the Today show—in the uncomplicated joy that people had, either from seeing Steely Dan live or being near Katie Couric on TV. My mother was so happy to see me on TV, and I got to say, “Hi, mom,” as the camera passed. What an amazing moment, and how great to have experienced it. But we grow and mature with this music, and it’s amazing to be able to go back and see it all again.
Loved your story, thank you from Maui! While setting up a bunch of new wireless mics last week, was just telling a friend about my "Today Show" wireless experience from that morning... Load in late the night before, sound check at 5AM. Walter's Bogner, Mesa, and rack rig were running perfectly (I was guitar tech). Sound check was killer. But the city was just waking up. It was showtime very soon, and out of nowhere, radio interference began blaring out of WB's amps from his wireless guitar rig! Director yells "fix the noise, you're on in one". I freaked, but rapidly scrambled through channels on the rack, finding mostly taxi chatter! Walter kind of froze. Other tech, Skip Guildersleeve, grabbed an emergency cable (which would really affect our sound). It was so close. But BAM, a clean channel was found, noise gone. Walter shredded a warmup, and we were ready to rock, God Is Good!... So grateful to see the youtube again. Happy 25! Dave Russell
Very nice piece, thanks Jake and Evan.