Unfortunately (or fortunately!), the entire one and a half hour show was eclipsed by the star-studded encore.
Close your eyes and it's 1973. Only instead of this blues-based band being fronted by guys, it's two women!
Rebecca Lovell absolutely slays on the guitar, and her sister Megan plays standup slide. And there's a bass player and a drummer, both men, and not a hard drive in sight.
It was head-twisting, as in this is exactly the opposite of what is being sold to us by the media, it couldn't be more different from Beyoncé, 50 years of hip-hop or Harry Styles.
Oh, don't point to publicity here or there. And don't talk to me about the Grammy undercard, which only those nominated care about. I'm talking about the general public. How hard is it to reach the public at large? ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE!
Now the way it used to be was fans digested the record and went to see the band live to hear renditions of the songs they were familiar with. But that script has been flipped. Maybe not with the Spotify Top 50 acts, but if you're outside the pop/hip-hop hegemony that dominates the major labels and the press, what you hope for most is that someone catches you live. This is the essence of the undercard of the festival. Are you so good that people will become fans?
Most acts are not. Because despite their protestations, they're just not that dedicated, they're not lifers, unlike the Lovells, who've been at it for decades. If you're not willing to slog it out on the road...
Another interesting note is that we've heard for the past decade and a half that it's all about solo acts, cutting tracks in their bedrooms. But it turns out the road is defined by bands, where the records are secondary.
Anyway, the lights went down and over the PA system was played...WHITE ROOM?
Come on, you remember the intro flourish. Or if you don't... Streaming services have surfaced all the old tracks, they're there for the listening, and they're anything but evanescent, Robert Johnson is forever, and people are now discovering the blues roots that inspired the classic rock acts.
I've been waiting for this, for such a long time, but last night I experienced it, I got hope.
So when the girls/women (and believe me they looked young) took the stage I expected them to segue into the Cream classic. But "White Room" stopped and the band started to play and...
I was positively wowed!
Come on, it's a sentence to see most acts, especially if you don't know the material. You start checking your phone, wondering if you can sneak out without anybody noticing. But from the very first note last night I was into it, my body was moving involuntarily in tune, I mean this is the sound I was brought up on. Is it for everybody? NOTHING IS FOR EVERYBODY!
Now in the old days, the key would be to record a single. Find that elusive hit. But even that paradigm is dead. Where would it be played? Certainly not on Top 40 radio. And Active Rock is for metal-influenced acts, all multiple generations removed from the progenitors, you need a handbook to decode what is going on there, it's not for newbies.
So what's a poor girl to do, who is playing in a rock and roll band? Just go on the road and slay, making fans night by night.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you I heard a hit, but like I stated above, what difference would that make anyway? This was not a cover band. These were originals. Inspired by the classics...
And unlike Fanny, who I saw at the Fillmore East, Larkin Poe was uncompromised, there was no softness around the edges, no pop, you could have closed your eyes and thought it was guys.
And in a world where everything seems to come from a machine, this authentic blues-based rock sound has a humanity and authority lacking from the hit parade.
It brought me back fifty years. When a show was an experience. Which set your mind free and let you drift. Not an excuse to party. Not a few hits with filler, but an emotional excursion.
And the sisters were not trading on their sexuality. You couldn't watch the show and see sexism at all. They were not trying to titillate us. They came out wearing sneakers, basic outfits, it was all about the music, ALL about the music!
And if you took them to the mall (where no one seems to go anymore), or somewhere public, no one would turn their head. None of the outrageous hair and other "rock star" look that reacted to classic rock and has perpetuated ever since. It wasn't about looking like a star, it was about letting the music do the talking.
I was into it the whole time, I didn't want to leave.
And the encore was the two women virtually a cappella.
And then...
They announced there were special guests.
This is a feature of an L.A. show. Because everybody lives here. You never know who might show up. And I didn't know who would show up last night.
It turned out to be Mike Campbell and Steve Ferrone.
Steve sat behind the kit and got comfortable, tested the skins.
And Mike, with his Flintstone-shaped guitar, was getting his fingers loosened up.
And then...
It was unmistakable, they were playing RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM!
That never would come to me.
But it did last night.
This was not the record, the second cut on "Full Moon Fever," this was something you could only get live. There was a fuzz in Mike's guitar, he was slashing and burning, it was the essence of what once was and rarely exists today. It was edgy and visceral, raw and loud. AND IT FELT SO GOOD!
Meanwhile, Ferrone, who made his bones with the Average White Band, is on one hand a metronome, but there is power and precision and it lifted the entire enterprise up a notch.
And Mike starts to sing the song he cowrote...
And damned if it didn't sound like Tom, you could hear (and feel!) that southern accent.
And he traded verses with Rebecca.
And the whole thing was a freight train rollin' down the track. And the train kept a-rollin', unfortunately not all night long, but for much longer than I expected.
And I expected, hoped for more. I mean these two had made the trek.
But it was not to be.
So what was it?
Well, the Fonda holds 1,200. And who was there... Upstairs, mostly oldsters. Much more aged than the band. They remembered this sound.
But oldsters like to sit. What about downstairs, on the floor, where you're forced to stand?
Well, a lot of thirty and fortysomethings.
And I scanned the crowd on the way out and there were definitely twentysomethings there, but they were in the distinct minority.
You see the oldsters remember this sound. And they yearn for more. More than the oldies repeated on the radio. More than the acts with plastic surgery trying to bring us back to what once was. They want something new and vibrant.
And that's Larkin Poe!
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