New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden
"Before joining the Doobie Brothers, Mr. McDonald was briefly a member of Steely Dan. And at the Beacon, he and Mr. Fagen reunited musically with a strong sweet-and-sour rendition of Steely Dan's "Pretzel Logic." Mr. Fagen's best moment was a bouncy rendition of "IGY (What A Beautiful World)," while Mr. McDonald's was a rich, quietly plaintive "You Belong To Me." The revue, which was planned and promoted by the singer and songwriter LIbby Titus with Ron Delsner, was the largest show of its kind put together by the singer, who has produced similar shows at the Lone Star Roadhouse and other New York clubs. They have brought a much-needed sense of spontaneity and musical camaraderie to a musical scene that often seems too coldly professional for its own good."
New York Newsday reviewer Wayne Robins
"The main attraction was Donald Fagen, and with good reason. As co-leader (with Walter Becker) of Steely Dan, the highest-IQ band of the 1970s, Fagen was hardly ever seen onstage. Call them perfectionists or control freaks, the band stopped playing live early in its career, although I can recall two legendary New York-area concerts: as the brilliant opening act for Cheech and Chong at Westbury Music Fair, and as the headliners in the disastrous mid-1970s Avery Fisher Hall concert that was their performing swan song. Steely Dan broke up at the dawn of the 1980s. Becker has produced some other artists (Rickie Lee Jones, China Crisis' latest). Fagen made one wonderful solo album ("The Nightfly") in 1982 but for most of the last decade his output has been sparse. His reticence has done nothing to stem the enthusiasm of a select cult following: Outside the Beacon, someone handed out fliers for "Metal Leg: The Steely Dan Fanzine." But when Fagen followed with Steely Dan's "Black Friday," the evening became more than a nostalgic frat party. His later tunes, including "IGY" from "The Nightfly" and Steely Dan's "Haitian Divorce" (Editor's note: He meant "Pretzel Logic"), were reminders that obtuse yet meaningful lyrics, sophisticated melodies and complex rhythms could entice a large and eager audience. The atypical looseness and fervor of Fagen's singing more than compensated for the band's stiffness in holding the road through the winding curves of the songs."
Wall Street Journal reviewer Pam Lambert
"For years the odds of catching Donald Fagen in concert looked only slightly better than those on the Berlin Wall falling. Steely Dan, the pop vehicle he piloted with Walter Becker, had released the last of its sophisticated pop albums back in 1980. And some time before that the pair had abandoned both touring and the pretense of bandhood, using Steely Dan as the banner under which a loose confederation of studio musicians could record. Some were clearly hoping for a Steely Dan show -- they were the ones shouting, "Aja!" "Haitian Divorce!" and the titles of other Dan favorites. The cheers had just about died down when the rhythmic figure opening "Black Friday," the first Steely Dan song of the evening, got the crowd yelping all over again. The number dated from Mr. McDonald's brief pre-Doobies stint with the ensemble in the mid-'70s. At first, Mr. Fagen 's voice sounded too forced, compared with its hipster-cool ease on the recordings. But things improved as the aptly named guitarist Drew Zingg stepped in, wisely playing his own lines instead of echoing Larry Carlton's stinging lead breaks on the original. It would be hard to single out a high point in this evening that went from strength to strength; Fagen and McDonald reteaming on the Dan classic "Pretzel Logic" flying in the face of the song's lyric, "Those days are gone forever, over a long time ago..."