The Fine Colombians bring their Steely Dan revue back to the Bijou on Jan. 9

The nine-piece tribute, born out of a Knoxville band, returns to Gay Street's oldest stage for a Saturday night in January.

There's a particular kind of Knoxville crowd that shows up for a Steely Dan night at the Bijou: people who can name the session drummer on "Aja," people who just want to hear "Peg" played right, and a few who came for the horns. On Saturday, January 9, 2027, they'll all be in the same room again.

The Fine Colombians: A Steely Dan Tribute play the Bijou Theatre at 8 p.m. Tickets are $36.95–$47.20 through Ticketmaster, and the date was announced October 27. The Bijou holds 700, and a hometown-rooted tribute in a theater that size on a Saturday is not the kind of ticket that lasts until the week of the show.

The band has a real Knoxville story. Its leader is Dr. Kenneth Eggert, who performs as "Dr. K." He's a pianist, singer, musicologist and classical composer who teaches in the music department at Brevard College. The project started when an old friend, bassist Scott Robbins, invited him to do an evening of Steely Dan tunes with his Knoxville group, the State Street Rhythm Section. That night stuck. The group eventually renamed itself The Fine Colombians, and it has been at it since 2017.

Steely Dan songs are built like puzzles, and a nine-piece is about the minimum it takes to put them back together.

What makes the band worth the ticket is the scale. This is a nine-piece: lead vocals and keys, a three-piece horn section, electric guitar, bass, drums and two background singers. Steely Dan records are dense, layered things, full of horn lines, backing vocals and chord changes that most bar bands quietly skip. A group this size is built to play them the way they were written. The set list draws on more than 50 songs from the Steely Dan catalogue and Donald Fagen's solo records, so there's room to go past the radio hits.

The band splits its home base between Asheville and Knoxville and now tours across the Southeast, playing clubs and theaters such as Atlanta's Red Clay Music Foundry and Tybee Island's Post Theater. But the Bijou is a home room for them. They've played full-album shows there before, including a performance of *Gaucho* from start to finish, and returning on a winter Saturday has started to look like a habit.

The Bijou suits this music. It's an intimate, seated theater on Gay Street where 700 people can actually hear the difference between a good horn chart and a great one. Steely Dan fans tend to be the listening kind, and a room like this rewards them.

If you're going, buy early, get there in time to find your seat before the downbeat, and don't be surprised if the deep cuts get a bigger cheer than the hits. That's the kind of crowd it is.

Early January can feel like the dead zone of the concert calendar in Knoxville, after the holidays and before spring tours start rolling through. This is a good way to break it up: a night of "Reelin' in the Years" and "Kid Charlemagne" with a band that started a few blocks from your seat. Grab tickets now and mark the second Saturday of the new year.

Sources: The Fine Colombians: A Steely Dan Tribute (Bijou Theatre) (knoxbijou.org); The Fine Colombians – Tribute to Steely Dan (Tybee Post Theater) (tybeeposttheater.org); The Fine Colombians - A Steely Dan Tribute (Key Signature) (keysignatureonline.com); Tickets: The Fine Colombians at Bijou Theatre (Ticketmaster) (ticketmaster.evyy.net); JamBase: The Fine Colombians at Bijou Theatre (jambase.com)