Tuesday felt like Saturday night, as the inebriated theme park that is the Jimmy Buffett summer tour rolled into Riverbend for its annual visit.

        Blessed with perfect weather and his usual wildly garbed sell-out of 20,000 Parrot Heads, the 55-year-old singer/songwriter led his Coral Reefers through 30 years of songs.

        He kept to his trend of the past few years, stripping away the props and other production frills (with the exception of his two female dancers and their multiple costume changes, from hula girls to devil/angels).

        The focus was on the music, or as much focus as could be maintained amid the drunken melee that is BufFest, a 20-year Cincinnati tradition.

        There was a lot of beach ball tossing and hokey novelties like the appropriately titled, “What If The Hokey-Pokey Is All It Really Is About?” That came from his new CD, Far Side of the World.

        But so did the best new song of the evening, “Savannah Fare You Well” a beautiful ballad featuring gorgeous pedal steel guitar by Doyle Grisham.

        So while there was the traditional audience participation of “Fins” (“Fins to the left, fins to the right”), there was also his poignant “A Pirate Looks at 40,” done with the lights down, the only accompaniment his and Peter Mayer's acoustic guitars. Even after all these years, Mr. Buffett still brings real emotion to the song.

        But the new material is some of his best in a very long time, since before his attempted Broadway musical, “Don't Stop the Carnival.” Of course, the crowd wasn't there to hear new songs. And the Head Parrot knows better than to disappoint them. He even played two of the biggest crowd pleasers — “Margaritaville” and “Why Don't We Get Drunk...” in the first hour of his two-and-a-half hour performance. The latter was done in faux-bluegrass style, a nod to the O Brother Where Art Thou? phenomenon.

        His attention to musical detail showed in his band. Percussionist Ralph MacDonald on congas (and some great cowbell playing on “Southern Cross”) and steel drummer Robert Greenidge gave everything its appropriate island flavor, aided by soulful backup singer Nadirah Shakoor.

        But just when the party seemed to be getting too crazy, Mr. Buffett would pull it back. Even after the mania of “Fins,” he returned to the music, kicking into Steve Stills' great “Southern Cross.”

        So even though it wasn't a weekend and for only one night, with his masterful pacing and re-energized songwriting, the Buffett carnival has no end in sight.

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