Photography by Tom Bielli

As the Santana hit “Smooth” aptly put it, “Man, it was a hot one” both literally and figuratively for bands and fans at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) when the Doobie Brothers and Santana split the ticket Wednesday, July 1.

The mercury climbed to a sticky 99 degrees Fahrenheit at about 4 pm in Saratoga Springs and was still hovering in the mid-90s by show time at 7pm when the Doobie Brothers took the stage first. However, it may have been the performances that broke heat records.

Nothing, not the ice cream being uncharacteristically sold in the amphitheater aisles, not the misting fans at the gate, not even the brief rain shower and the merciful fall of darkness cooled down these bands. Their intensity and high energy were just too extreme. Both the Doobie Brothers and Santana remained red hot from start to finish.

For one thing, the Doobies were not your typical “warmup’ act on this sultry night at SPAC. In fact, they cooked on high for a good half hour longer than most openers, rocking for a full hour and a quarter with a slate of their trademark up-tempo hits.

The Bros led off with “Rockin’ Down the Highway” and closed with “Listen to the Music,” bringing the audience to their feet on many occasions and not turning down their full boil much for small talk, anecdotes or song introductions in between.

And none of these guys are spring chickens.

Five numbers in, after segueing from “Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)” to “Dependin’ on You” and a few bars of what sounded like “Oye Como Va” (perhaps a tease for Santana’s upcoming set), guitarist and founding member Pat Simmons came to the mic, sporting now-silver long hair under a cowboy hat.

“We’re so happy to be here,” he told the crowd. “… We’ve got some surprises for you tonight.”

Despite the allusion to surprises, there really weren’t many except an appearance by Andy Vargas and Ray Greene of Santana, who came on stage for “Takin’ It to the Streets” to share vocals with multi-talented singer/songwriter Michael McDonald, who is normally featured for that number.

McDonald, to the audience’s delight, got plenty of time in the spotlight however, manning the keyboards and taking lead vocals for such classics as “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)”, “Minute by Minute,” Kenny Loggins’ “What a Fool Believes,” and a jazzy, improvisational rendition of “Amazing Grace” with saxophonist Marc Russo, who had solos and interludes in many tunes.

For those who saw the Doobies as headliners last year at SPAC on their Walk This Road tour, attendees might have noticed that the background visuals seemed to be the same for many of the songs from one year to the next. What the band may have lacked in novel bells and whistles, however, it made up for with vitality, instrumental and vocal strength and delivery of the hits that keep their fan base coming back for more.

The Doobies came out with Simmons’ groundbreaking sleeper hit, “Black Water,” in 1974, and it still brings the crowd to their feet, dancing, swaying, clapping and singing along about “funky Dixieland” and “pretty mama’’ taking [me] by the hand.

Indeed, the Doobies still can really rock despite the passage of time. On the last chord of “Black Water,” Simmons jumped with his guitar and veteran guitarist/singer Tom Johnston stirred up the crowd with his cheerleading and hand clapping while at lead vocals.

“You wanna hear another one; you wanna bring it up?!” he coaxed the crowd midway in a high-energy performance of “Long Train Runnin’.”

“Without lo-ove,” the audience roared back, up on their feet yet again, followed by a harmonica solo by the versatile John McFee, who also contributed virtuoso work on the fiddle and guitar in other parts of the show.

For the final chorus of “Long Train Runnin’,” which featured black and white silent-movie clips of a train hurtling toward a heroine bound to the tracks, Johnston raised his arm, and shouted, “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” before the throbbing music stopped dead. Not for long though. A moment later, the sound came back with a vengeance with percussion, drum and sax solos by Marc Quinones, Ed Toth, and Russo, respectively.

Bass guitarist John Cowan, also touring this year with the Doobies, likewise contributed mightily, albeit less in the limelight. He did, however, appear to open the vocals for “Take Me in Your Arms” early in the set.

The Doobie Brothers kept up the blistering energy throughout the show, with a direct segue from “Long Train Runnin’” into “China Grove”, approaching the last few numbers of their set.” Firebrand Johnston remained at lead vocals, but Simmons helped light a fire under the audience to sing and boogie their hearts out when he roved the stage, clapping over his head, before ripping chords on the electric guitar with Johnston and McFee center stage. Johnston closed the number with an abrupt punch at the air.

The equally crowd-interactive and zealous finale, “Listen to the Music,” had the audience fairly screaming acapella, “Oh ho ho, listen to the music,” after Johnston taunted, “I can’t hear ya; bring it up!” then strutted across the stage to incite cheers.

The peace signs the Doobies flashed and the kisses they blew about 8:15 p.m. after a group curtain call were as classic and endearing as the band’s predominantly oldies repertoire.

Santana, led by the inimitable Carlos Santana, took the stage a little before 9 p.m. opening with an intriguing video presentation. It featured a burgeoning percussion sound, African dancers, wind and percussion instruments from multiple cultures, an aboriginal hunting party, a crude tower from which young men appeared to be jumping tethered to ropes or vines bungee-style, and, eventually, scenes of people mud-sliding at Woodstock 57 years ago.

The heavy recorded percussion of the video segued into live percussion, then electric guitars and keyboard. As the lights came up on Santana’s 9-person band, Santana himself came on stage wearing a black hat, glasses and white clothes printed with colorful symbols, hand shapes and words, including “Oneness,” the name of the current tour.

Though Carlos Santana’s footing was a bit slow, the pacing of his music and his musical style were anything but.

If the Doobies “warmed up” the audience with their energy, speed, and improvisational styling, Santana’s band seared their fans with intensity on an already hot night.

A brief rain perhaps cooled down the air temperature a few degrees for concert goers on the lawn, but it did nothing to quell the heat of Santana’s performance. I was lounging in Row R, but the surging string of songs tired me as it flared frequently into long guitar riffs, powerful drum and percussion interludes and unconstructed jamming, sometimes from nine instrumentalists at once.

Like the Doobies, Santana was long on songs that segued ablaze into one another, but the band was short on breathers and introductions for those songs. Consequently, it was a challenge sometimes to know when one number ended and the next began, especially for instrumental pieces without vocals.

On the plus side, the talent, the ability to command a huge variety of instruments (percussion instruments I can’t even identify) and switch amongst them like keys on a piano, was incomparable. The bestial sound that sometimes resulted was sometimes too complex for my ear.

While Carlos Santana seemed to be a man of few words during his concerts, he is a man of MANY cries, all of them on the guitars he plays.

Wednesday night, Papa Carlos made those stringed babies, cry, scream, even wail long and laceratingly, with a deftness that is truly amazing. In two numbers I could identify, a high-energy cover of the Zombies’ “She’s Not There,” and a solo interlude during “Put Your Lights On,” Santana appeared to run his hand (or hands) down the neck of the guitar, producing extreme scales. Yet in “Maria Maria,” he commanded classic Spanish styling, and in familiar favorites such as the finale, “Smooth,” he made the guitar cry, but in synch with a strong pop melody.

Santana actually sang in almost raplike style for a rapid string of lyrics in “Maria Maria,” but left most of the vocals to the youthful and energetic Andy Vargas, lead vocalist, and Ray Greene, who also played maracas and tambourine among other percussion instruments and stirred up the crowd when their hands were freed.

Greene wowed the crowd by frequently stepping in with trombone interludes and rallied audience members almost as often to pay tribute to Carlos Santana.

“Put your hands in the air and make some noise,” he directed at one point. “Santana’s in the house. Y’all about to get down to the sound of Carlos Santana!”

The young dynamos crooned in English for familiar melodies such as “Evil Ways” and “Black Magic Woman” and switched to Spanish for “Oye Como Va,” “(Da le) Yaleo” and “Corazon Espinado,” in between incredible, unconstructed instrumental solos by their band mates.

Santana’s band did afford listeners one radical slowdown after “(Da le) Yaleo,” in which smoke was literally rising and David K. Mathews burned up the keyboards with a piano-pounding style as Santana held onto an ultra-long chord on guitar.

In synch with the lull, guitarist/vocalist Tommy Anthony came to the forefront and delivered lead vocals and instrumentation with a slight echo for “Put Your Lights On” against alternating footage of burning candles and the SPAC audience waving lit cell phones.

After the main vocal segments, however, the musical intensity and instrumental showcasing built into a frenzy again. There was definitely no shortage of talent among instrumentalists.

Benny Rietveld on bass paired with Santana for an improvisational duet mid-set. My jaw dropped when Rietveld demonstrated his thumb-slapping, fast strumming technique. He had equal dexterity when he slowed briefly to use a more traditional four-fingered picking style before segueing into an intense and lengthy duet – almost an escalating conversation between instruments — with Cindy Blackman, Santana’s wife who let the drums know who was boss.

What a powerful lady! With arms sculpted from passionate drumming and who knows what else, Mrs. Santana answered Rietveld’s bass picking with summer thunderstorms on the drums, both her hands and foot pedal flying. After that exertion, near the end of the show, she launched into a drum solo that lasted at least an estimated five minutes, showcasing her fast, deft pounding. By the end, her mouth was set in a determined line from the rigor.

Percussionists Karl Perazzo and Paoli Mejias also contributed wonderful solo interludes, the latter playing the congas with both his hands and elbows early in the set.

The performance’s intensity slackened periodically or at least accommodated some silliness from time to time, too.

Perazzo, it appeared, almost dropped a pair of sticks after a blistering exercise in speed and agility on percussion at the end of “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” but recovered without missing a beat.

Then there was a moment between Reitveld and Anthony as Reitveld surfaced from a particularly intense bass interlude and stuck his tongue out in mock exhaustion, drawing a complicit smile from Anthony on guitar.

During “Foo Foo,” a high-energy, rapid-fire number, it seemed every instrumentalist played on every instrument in unison for a deafening, unconstructed cacophony, but video clips meanwhile humorously showed young children dancing to strong percussion as the backdrop.

“Come on everybody, jump,” head cheerleader Greene commanded during that number. “Jump, jump, jump,’’ and jump they did despite a preponderance of over-50 year-olds in at least the front of the house.

At the end of “Foo Foo,” fifteenth in the lineup, the lights went down and the Santana band left the stage, segueing to a video of statues on monuments.

In a rare oral role, Santana approached the mic alone to explain his take on each of our responsibilities to find and spread joy, hinting at the connection to “ Oneness,” the title of his current tour.

You can make up your mind. You have control over your mind. You make up your mind to have fun…and you make joy.

[There is] a lot of darkness…too much negativity on this planet. But if I wanna grab joy, I must first embrace gratitude. Without gratitude, you have entitlement, and that’s not good for you.

If you take anything away from this concert, it’s that you’re precious, priceless. You can make a positive difference in the world.

Though Santana sat for much of the concert and many, many solo interludes, he stood at the mic for his mini-speech, then in the spotlight for what might have been “Toussaint L’Ouverture” when his band returned moments later, then to applaud his wife after her marathon drum solo, and to walk slowly to the edge of the stage after the finale to acknowledge well-wishers in the front rows.

As noted, there appeared to be a mixed crowd at the show, with many over-50-year-olds in the main house, and perhaps younger folks on the lawn, but the energy of the show, the youthful athleticism of the lead vocalists, and the youth dancing imagery in “Smooth,” was young – and hot.

As “Smooth” aptly pointed out in in its first line, “Man, it’s a hot one.” The “hot one” was not just the sweltering weather, but the music. The young demographic that didn’t make the show may be missing out on the immense energy and talent of Santana. Additionally, they may be missing Santana’s important message: the last images on the show’s backdrop: multiple hands encircling the earth, with one final word in black print, “Oneness.”

Perhaps Santana, with its mix of edgy but joyous improvisation, veteran skill, youthful vocalists and a multi-generational message, can help achieve that lofty goal of unity in a divided world.

Cindy Blackman Santana on drums with a reflection of Carlos Santana.

Doobie Brothers’ Setlist: Rockin’ Down the Highway, Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While) (Eddie Holland cover), Dependin’ on You, I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near), Walk This Road, It Keeps You Runnin’, Minute by Minute, Without You, Jesus Is Just Alright (the Art Reynolds Singers cover), What a Fool Believes (Kenny Loggins cover), Long Train Runnin’, China Grove, Black Water, Amazing Grace (John Newton cover), Takin’ It to the Streets, Listen to the Music

Santana Setlist: Soul Sacrifice, Jin-go-lo-ba (Babatunde Olatunji cover), Evil Ways (Willie Bobo cover), Black Magic Woman, Gypsy Queen, Oye Como Va (Tito Puente cover), Everybody’s Everything, Bass and Drum Duet (Roundabout by Yes and Iron Man snippet by Black Sabbath), She’s Not There (The Zombies cover), Hope You’re Feeling Better, (Da Le) Yaleo, Put Your Lights On, Corazon Espinado, Maria Maria, Foo Foo, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Drum Solo (Cindy Blackman Santana), Smooth