My Wonderful Adventure in the Land of LA
Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 6:17 pmHow appropriate to go see a Jimi Hendrix Tribute band last night for the 40th anniversary since Jimi's death. We also saw two other bands. It was nice to get out after all the stress of my past week.
First band, kick ass drummer with a double bass drum. It's funny when your drum set is so big it crowds out the guitarist and the bass player. Okay, sound, they were tight, hard rock band. All their songs had like one name titles, it was kind of funny. This is "Speedball," this is "Foot," this is "Pedalmouth." I wish I could hear the vocals but as usual the sound was drowned out by guitars and the drummer who didn't hide the fact that he was badass. Bless the patience of the poor bass player who was backed in the corner like someone had painted him there.
Note to bands: Set List, they work wonders and avoids all the tinkering, doodling and onstage conferences where you talk to your band members about what to play next with your back to your listeners. We audiences have a short attention span, so don't lose us, it just lets the air out of your entire performance. You have to spend your next song building us back up again. It's like constantly starting and stopping sex.
The tribute band was nice. Instead doing the regular kitch of Jimi tunes, we got to hear a lot of the Band of Gypsies stuff. The only thing that was kind of distracting was he behaved more like someone out of a Prince tribute band than Jimi. No biggies, they were tight. My favorite tribute band is Stone Free Experience. This guy looks and sounds just like Jimi, even the little nuances.
The last band, they were all right. The drummer took more our attention than the lead singer. The songs just weren't holding our attention and it was late.
Here's the funny part. Next door, was a music store, but all these people were hanging outside. So we went in. They had a stage in the back and a band was setting up. Hubs and I walked around looking at all the vintage instruments. Someone had a laptop and was playing all this spooky, spacey music like out of a 60's sci fi. We were all in black and gothy looking. I felt like we warped into a 1960s venue. The crowd told me nothing of the band to come. There were people dressed in regular clothes, deadheads in their tiedye t-shirts, a number of people who were barefoot, a few mohawks, and one guy who looked like he went awol from an ashram in India. He even did his yoga while waiting for the band to start.
The band walked up on the stage. The lead singer was beautiful, with a black dress and had beautiful long, black hair that reached the back of her shins. The rest of the band were dressed in regular jeans and t-shirts. Except the guitar player looked like a forest creature. For a moment I thought she had got her fairy godmother to turn one of her pets into a guitarist for the night. His face was painted like a fox or a cat with a third eye painted on his forehead. And he had dreds that stuck upright on his head like critter ears. He was barefoot too. Wow.
I really thought I was going to be treated to some serious . . . I don't know . . . because of the mix of people. And the crowd knew them because they all tithered excitedly in front of the stage. After several "false" starts the drummer counts out the first song. BLAMmmmer, huh?
It's punk, okay, I like punk, but I like the angry, guns blazing kind of punk. This was . . . . the lead vocalist is wailing the . . . imagine those 60s sci-fi movies where that funny high pitched synthesizer sound is just going "woaaah-oh-woaaaah-oh-oh-woaaah-oh-woaaah" but she was doing it in a deeper register. Interesting, but I was waiting for a song to start, or a swamp beast to come carry me off. Instead this went on and on and on. Then catman launched into a guitar solo. Hubs had heard enough so I got pulled out of there. We heard them as we walked the long black up to my car and she still was doing the same thing. (Sigh)
But, I love LA. The positive in this is I loved that I got treated to something so strange. No, I wouldn't buy their CD and play it in my car, but I just liked the fact I saw that. Because people are totally amazing, especially in LA. I really want to find out the name of that chick's fairy godmother. I'll have her turn the Jimster into a guitarist.
Chaeya
First band, kick ass drummer with a double bass drum. It's funny when your drum set is so big it crowds out the guitarist and the bass player. Okay, sound, they were tight, hard rock band. All their songs had like one name titles, it was kind of funny. This is "Speedball," this is "Foot," this is "Pedalmouth." I wish I could hear the vocals but as usual the sound was drowned out by guitars and the drummer who didn't hide the fact that he was badass. Bless the patience of the poor bass player who was backed in the corner like someone had painted him there.
Note to bands: Set List, they work wonders and avoids all the tinkering, doodling and onstage conferences where you talk to your band members about what to play next with your back to your listeners. We audiences have a short attention span, so don't lose us, it just lets the air out of your entire performance. You have to spend your next song building us back up again. It's like constantly starting and stopping sex.
The tribute band was nice. Instead doing the regular kitch of Jimi tunes, we got to hear a lot of the Band of Gypsies stuff. The only thing that was kind of distracting was he behaved more like someone out of a Prince tribute band than Jimi. No biggies, they were tight. My favorite tribute band is Stone Free Experience. This guy looks and sounds just like Jimi, even the little nuances.
The last band, they were all right. The drummer took more our attention than the lead singer. The songs just weren't holding our attention and it was late.
Here's the funny part. Next door, was a music store, but all these people were hanging outside. So we went in. They had a stage in the back and a band was setting up. Hubs and I walked around looking at all the vintage instruments. Someone had a laptop and was playing all this spooky, spacey music like out of a 60's sci fi. We were all in black and gothy looking. I felt like we warped into a 1960s venue. The crowd told me nothing of the band to come. There were people dressed in regular clothes, deadheads in their tiedye t-shirts, a number of people who were barefoot, a few mohawks, and one guy who looked like he went awol from an ashram in India. He even did his yoga while waiting for the band to start.
The band walked up on the stage. The lead singer was beautiful, with a black dress and had beautiful long, black hair that reached the back of her shins. The rest of the band were dressed in regular jeans and t-shirts. Except the guitar player looked like a forest creature. For a moment I thought she had got her fairy godmother to turn one of her pets into a guitarist for the night. His face was painted like a fox or a cat with a third eye painted on his forehead. And he had dreds that stuck upright on his head like critter ears. He was barefoot too. Wow.
I really thought I was going to be treated to some serious . . . I don't know . . . because of the mix of people. And the crowd knew them because they all tithered excitedly in front of the stage. After several "false" starts the drummer counts out the first song. BLAMmmmer, huh?
It's punk, okay, I like punk, but I like the angry, guns blazing kind of punk. This was . . . . the lead vocalist is wailing the . . . imagine those 60s sci-fi movies where that funny high pitched synthesizer sound is just going "woaaah-oh-woaaaah-oh-oh-woaaah-oh-woaaah" but she was doing it in a deeper register. Interesting, but I was waiting for a song to start, or a swamp beast to come carry me off. Instead this went on and on and on. Then catman launched into a guitar solo. Hubs had heard enough so I got pulled out of there. We heard them as we walked the long black up to my car and she still was doing the same thing. (Sigh)
But, I love LA. The positive in this is I loved that I got treated to something so strange. No, I wouldn't buy their CD and play it in my car, but I just liked the fact I saw that. Because people are totally amazing, especially in LA. I really want to find out the name of that chick's fairy godmother. I'll have her turn the Jimster into a guitarist.
Chaeya
