On Wednesday afternoon I made the snap, last minute
decision to see Santana in concert at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow,
Virginia. Despite having been aware of,
and a fan of, this band since college (1886-1890) I had never gotten around to
seeing them in concert.
If you have finite time and money, do you exclusively
attend concerts of bands you’ve already seen before, or do you seek out some
new experiences? For my part, 60% of
the bands I saw in 2019 were ones I’d seen before, and 40% were new bands. DesertFest NYC featured The Skull, Monolord,
and Windhand – who I’d seen before – but also Elder, ASG, Danava and Weedeater,
who I hadn’t. As it was, Elder, the
final headliner on Sunday night, was the band I was most interested in seeing. This Boston, MA band wasn’t scheduled to tour
anywhere close to DC, so I had to traipse all the way up to NJ/NY to see these
shows. Well worth it, as Elder were as
satisfying as their studio albums would indicate.
For that matter, have I ever NOT enjoyed a concert? Does this happen often enough to dissuade me
from seeing a band I’d never seen before?
It happened ONCE.
The Mars Volta.
Those of us familiar with Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii movie know that
the band interviews during the Dark Side of the Moon sessions,
interrupting the prior jams of much earlier material at Pompeii, are oddly as
entertaining as the musical performances themselves. Gilmour’s denial of drug use on
the part of the band is amusing, of course, but so is Roger’s bold but true
assertion that “if people go to a show and they don’t like it, they don’t come
again.” That was the case with the only
concert I really disliked and left early:
The Mars Volta, at the Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore, September 21,
2008. Normally the band’s material is
1/3 nonstop aggression and 2/3 prog and psychedelic, an acceptable mix. But live, the band seemed to be nonstop
nonstop aggression, which I did not like. (Even guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez admitted that no one wants to be punched in the face nonstop for 90 minutes). Bye bye!
Here I went as a last minute decision to see a band I’d
never seen before. I got the cheapest
lawn tickets they had and made no effort to reiterate my prior solicitations of
companionship. With the TV screens we
could see much of what was going on stage anyway. The grooves were infectious and the overall
experience highly enjoyable.
Che Guevara. Before
the right had Trump to idolize and ignore his numerous deficiencies, the Left
had Che Guevara. In Exposing The
True Che Guevara: And The Useful Idiots
Who Idolize Him, Humberto Fontova, a Cuban immigrant who is clearly NOT a
fan of his, described encountering Carlos Santana and giving him grief for
wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt as so many people do, citing the man’s many
atrocities under Castro’s regime.
Santana’s reaction – imagine this in Tommy Chong’s voice – “you’re
getting hung up on the facts, man!”
Broken SG. Nowadays it seems Santana plays exclusively
Paul Reed Smith guitars. But back in the
day, he had a cherry red Gibson SG Special with dot inlays and P90 pickups,
which he played at Woodstock. For some
reason – most likely the guitar wouldn’t stay in tune – he wanted a
replacement, but wasn’t actually running the band (!), so it vetoed his
demand. So he smashed the guitar,
destroying it, and then said, “THERE.
Now you have to buy me a new guitar.”
Jam Band. If you listen to the Fillmore show from
1968, or the Woodstock performance, or the first album, it’s clear that early
Santana is very similar to the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers –
definitely a jam band. In fact, Gregg
Rolie and Neil Schon, better known from Journey, were in his band early on
(Rolie from the beginning). Not only
that, if you listen to Journey’s first album, they’re more like a prog band and
don’t sound much, if anything, like the band that gave us “Don’t Stop
Believing” and “Open Arms” with later singer Steve Perry.
This is why I needed to see him in concert. I checked Setlist.fm and verified that live,
he’s still playing his classic tunes. Of
the rest, fairly recent album Supernatural gets the most coverage, 6
songs, including “Smooth”. The later
tunes are shorter. Live, he’s still
giving some good jams.
I’m ambivalent about otherwise talented guitarists who bury
their decent guitar solos in music I really don’t care for: Prince comes to mind, plus late model Don
Felder. His two songs on the Heavy
Metal soundtrack, recorded exclusively for that album, are far superior (in my
humble opinion) to any of his solo work since leaving the Eagles.
With Santana there’s a ton of African rhythms, latin and
jazz stuff which can tax my tolerance for jam band material. But then I was hearing a strong Ray Manzarek
influence with the keyboardist – and then Santana himself started off the
distinctive and instantly recognizable solo intro for “Light My Fire”, followed
by snippets of Stones material, and even a bit of “Day Tripper”, giving us some
classic rock material amidst all the worldbeat stuff we might get from Mickey
Hart. Suffice to say he’s all over the
place. And for a guy born in 1947, he
can still play guitar. If he has any
health issues I couldn’t see them from where I was in the audience.
College Park (Origins). Along with early Scorpions – Lonesome
Crow and Fly to the Rainbow – Santana, in particular Viva Santana,
was another learning experience of College Park. Eventually that led me to Peter Green era Fleetwood
Mac to seek out the original “Black Magic Woman”, and check out Live in
Boston Vol 1, which also has “Green Manalishi” – better known from Judas
Priest’s cover of it. Of course, PG
era FM are also a jam band – and Green was a big fan of the Dead. “Oh Well” is probably the go-to jam song for
his era of ‘Mac.
WTF? As I expected, Santana made one “speech” exhorting the crowd to
get crazy. It was couched in metaphysical
language guaranteed to confuse everyone.
I think he tries it out beforehand with the band members and roadies and
if anyone can figure out what he’s trying to say, he scratches it out and
starts over.
Concessions. By now I’ve seen enough shows that I’m not
compelled to buy a t-shirt as a matter of principle. My preference is for a shirt with tour dates
on the back. A blank back t-shirt
doesn’t tell the world I purchased it at a concert. Sadly, the best front design is not always
the one with tour dates on the back, and the latter shirt may well have a dull
or suboptimal design. Sadly, that was
the case here. Santana did have guitar-shaped magnet/bottle openers which were
nice enough. It won’t go any further
than my fridge, which I don’t take around in public with me, but it will open
bottles and stay on the fridge. Just as
well.
Parking Lot. I had
to leave early, before hearing “Smooth”, to avoid being trapped in the parking
lot for eternity. The venue, originally
Nissan Pavilion, has been here since May 1997, but to date they still do not
have a legitimate system to allow the parking lot to empty at the end of the
show (though I did see an Uber/Lyft pickup location identified, which might
actually work for people who live somewhere close to Bristow). The only way to avoid idling with everyone
else for an hour after the show is to leave before the encore. With Alice in Chains a few weeks before, my
problem was solved by Alice in Chains going on first and KORN being the final
band, who I didn’t care to see, least of all to endure the parking issue.
In any case, here is the Jiffy Lube Live set. My favorites are “Evil Ways”, “Oye Como Va”,
“Black Magic Woman”, and “Smooth” – though I didn’t get to hear that last tune.
No comments:
Post a Comment