The weekend before this, I went to see the singer on the first album I bought.  I had enjoyed Paul Revere and the Raiders music since I was five and appreciated their songwriting and production talent (in particular Mark Lindsay).  Yeah, they were commercial.  Yeah, they were kind of manufactured.  But throughout the sixties they were consistently good (even when their sales stalled).  They sold a ton of records in the sixties and had the biggest single in Columbia Records history until Michael Jackson.

When the seventies came, the trend followers couldn’t keep up.  You can only survive on gimmicks, polish, and production for so long.  But they endured more than most.  This was owing to Mark Lindsay and Terry Melcher mostly (Terry Melcher, by the way, Doris Day’s son and the Beach Boys producer).  From 1966 onwards, music was mutating at a pace unprecedented.  Jazz, Blues, Indian sitar music and percussion, Latin percussion, African percussion, feedback, sound effects, lyrical complexity, theater, poetry, issues making it into Pop, etc. were being mixed, matched and blended.   By 1968, the industry couldn’t keep up (at least for a short time).  At one time, FM stations would play Frank Sinatra as well as Janis Joplin and the Doors.  There really wasn’t genre oriented radio at the time.  However, as marketing started getting a handle on things again, it could once again produce hits.  Things weren’t “accidentally” hitting the charts.

Sometimes commercial music is fun and can have some worth besides producing expectations while hypnotizing the masses.  I’ve always contented it’s okay to like junk.  As long as you acknowledge it’s junk and it’s not your main diet.  Guilty pleasures can be okay.  But there is a limit . . . which leads to the theme or point of this entry.

I had to resign myself that since a lot of  my favourite artists were dying I had better see the living ones while I can (mind you, my musical tastes ranges from very old to very new so let’s dispose of this generation gap crap, okay?).  So I bought a ticket for this “Happy Together” tour mainly to see one artist (yes, you can dub this action as certifiably insane in retrospect).   Actually, Mark Lindsay wasn’t the only one I appreciated but he was the only one I was going to go out of my way to see.  I like Flo and Eddie’s work (especially the T-Rex background vox they did) and the Spencer Davis group had some good stuff and Three Dog Night had some good songs.  The trouble was that Spencer Davis alone was going be there and only one of Three Dog Night was still around.  I knew this going in.  The Cowsills had the song, “Hair” but that was about it as far as I was concerned.  I, unfortunately, forgot who Gary Puckett was (more on that later).

So I was aware this was probably not going to be an amazing show but at least I’d get to see Mark Lindsay and Flo and Eddie.  When I first arrived at the show my sixth sense started taking over.  A sense of foreboding.  I was the youngest one there (with the exception of some people’s grandchildren they had to drag with them.  “Now you’ll get to hear some real music.”  I hated hearing those words when I was a teenager and I hate hearing them uttered to teenagers now.  I mean, how insulting and narrow-minded can you be?), this was no surprise.  Old people don’t bother me, old people attitudes do.  Pete Townshend was once asked, “Do you regret the lyrics ‘Hope I die before I get old’ now that you are older?”  His reply was, no.  “When status rules my life then I’ve gotten old.”  People forget the line before it was “Thing they do/seem awful cold.” (My source for this was interview that was published in the Detroit Free Press in 1981.  Being the dutiful teenage Who fan I was I posted on my bedroom wall and subsequently lost it).

It seemed like it was an army of people preparing for battle against the passage of time.  Almost a war against reality.  Now it would be unfair to say they all were, but that was the vibe.  “We’re going back to the time when music was fun and innocent.  When music was good.”  I instantly started feeling two things: 1.) regret 2.)animosity.  Neither are pleasant and neither are common especially animosity.  But, it has been contended that anger can be a motivator for good if harnessed properly (i.e. no attacks physical or otherwise but a motivation to change things).  No matter.  I didn’t like feeling negative to people who have done nothing to me, that I don’t even know, that appear to be harming no one.  Then I realized three things: 1.) I wasn’t angry at people so much as attitudes 2.) I was assuming things without knowing 3.) It was best to wait and see.

Mind you, I did get some glares from some people probably wondering, “What are you doing here?”  I made sure I had a couple of drinks once I got in to brace myself.  Then there was the tacky fake DJ announcer (not a live person, but a recording).  This voice was constant throughout the show, announcing how many hits each act had.  This, to say the least, was annoying.  Then these guys in their forties sporting (what looked to me) eighties hairdos took the stage ( Note: I am no fashion consultant myself).  (The drummer was surrounded by plexi-glass).  Then this old guy came slowly shuffling on stage.  Very . . . slowly . . .indeed.  He announced himself as Spencer Davis and started playing.

Now, up to this point, I had seriously considered bolting for the door but when that old man played it like he was transformed!  He seemed to have more enthusiasm than his younger backup band (with the exception of the drummer who despite being caged seemed to enjoy himself)!  Spencer Davis’ vocals seemed to be lacking but his enthusiasm wasn’t.  He was even a bit of showman!  He started trying to tell stories of his time playing and how happy he was to be on stage until he stopped himself by saying, “They say I talk too much so I’ll just stop there and play.”  I thought, “What the hell?  Why not let him go on?  I enjoyed listening to him.”  The version of “I’m a Man” was great.  The only thing I heard from others was, “He’s no Stevie Winwood.”  Well, are any of us?

Then when it ended, Spencer Davis went back to being the little old man shuffling off the stage . . . very . . . slowly . . . indeed.

At this point I thought that this might not be bad after all.  Then came Gary Puckett . . . the sappiest singer I have ever heard live.  I’ll give him this, he played to his audience.  But his hit, “Young Girl” made me want to get sick.  Of course, the audience had to sing along.  Then he told us how he was in studio D in Columbia Studios while Paul Revere and the Raiders were in studio A, Sly and the Family Stone were studio B and Janis Joplin was in Studio C. (I was tempted to shout, “Then what the hell were you doing there?”  Luckily, I don’t do such behavior) Which, of course, led into the speech that could have been entitled, “The Sixties had the best music, everything after sucked.”  This is a speech that was not exclusive to Mr. Puckett.  It would repeated by every artist afterward with the exception of Flo and Eddie.

Then came the Cowsills.  Another forgotten band with a lot of hits.  For those who don’t know, the Cowsills were a band that literally was a family. They were very commercial, innocuous and easily marketable.  They were a cute act.  They were very much a product of the times or just a product.  They inspired an equally popular (and equally forgettable) T.V. series with a fake family band “The Partridge Family.”  Now the remaining Cowsills seem to be nice people so I don’t want be too hard on them but . . .  songs like “Flower Girl” were hard to take.  The stiff humour by the older brothers while the sister tried to tell a story was not cute or clever to me.  It was just  . . . annoying.  Even the song “Hair” seemed to devoid (or gutted) of any meaning.  In the sixties, it was bold statement and the musical was questioning of Vietnam and what value people set on human life.  During this performance, it had as much significance as a shampoo commercial.

Mercifully, there was an intermission.  I knew that Mark Lindsay was in the second half and hoped this was going to salvage the whole experience.  Sure enough, he started the second half with some promise. He did a combo of “Steppin’ Out” and “Just Like Me.”  This was first time there seemed to be any animation from the backup band.  There was look of joy on the guitarist’s face as he played an aggressive version of the solo on “Just Like Me.”  It was like he finally was able to let loose for however short a time.  Then there was “Good Thing.”  Great song and the backing vocals were covered well.      But . . . something was missing.  It was the growl and bravado missing from his voice.  It was like, “Here’s the song and let’s get through it as professionally as possible.”  Then he did his best version of “Mark Lindsay as a Rockette” throughout “Kicks.”  It went from an anti-drug song to “Richard Simmons Sweatin’ the Oldies.”  Then the monologue which included his very rehearsed comic take on growing old.  And, of course, about how the sixties had the best music and seventies were terrible and “I don’t even want to talk about the eighties.”  I will spare you more of the details except his intro to  “Indian  Reservation.”  He talked about how it was the biggest selling single for Columbia until “Billie Jean.”  Then the band started doing their version of “Billie Jean.” While this is playing, Mark Lindsay is doing his impression of Michael Jackson which can only be described as Curly of the Three Stooges on steroids.  And then the song was pretty much just run through as “Remember this?” by the audience sing along with handclapping on cue.

Being Native American (or Native Canadian in my family’s case.  Along with French Canadian on one side.  Two generations of English/Irish marriages on the other.  Which is getting off the subject . . .ahem) I took offense that it was treated as just a little ditty that scored PR and R a numero uno.  The thing I liked about their version was the growl in Mark Lindsay’s voice. But their was none in this performance.  He could be quite a good actor.  Remember what I said about him selling ice cubes to Eskimos?

Then Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night.  His voice was fantastic, surprisingly.  He played well to the audience.  Two things that put a black cloud over it for me ( I know these seem like petty, small things to some and I will concede that).  1.) “Jeramiah was bullfrog” starts this nearly uncontrollable urge to heave.  This is not because “Joy to the World” is bad song.  It’s just that I’ve been force fed it too many times for too many years. 2.) It was wonderful that he gave recognition to his former bandmates when introducing “One.”  He even went on about how proud he was of the song.  But he never mentioned the writer of the song.  This little known writer named Harry Nilson who didn’t do much in his career but write more hit songs than they could imagine.  Whose career was simply more amazing.  Let’s not forget the voice.   I just found it a wee bit of an oversight to go on about what an accomplishment that song was for Three Dog Night while not mentioning the guy who gave it to them.

Then Flo and Eddie.  Suffice it to say they were almost worth the anguish to get to them.  They were hilarious and sarcastic (about everything including the audience).  In addition to being a good comedy act they also sang, their hits when they were with the turtles.  They joked about missing being the Beatles by three letters and said that “this should be called “the ‘This Is What You’re Stuck With’ tour.”

And just when you thought it was safe . . . they invite all these acts back, allowing them to toss in a verse each from one of their hit songs.  Which    meant . . . you guessed it . . . Gary Puckett singing “Young Girl” again (complete with audience participation).  Oh, don’t forget the reprise of Mark Lindsay doing his version of the Rockettes for “Kicks” and, of course, “Jeramiah was a bullfrog!”

Considering all the turmoil and unrest in the sixties, Lord knows one needs to zone out once in a while to deal with it (kind of like now, eh?).  But come on, let’s not get full of ourselves and let’s have a sense of perspective.  I just saw it as the height of phoniness.

Going to the show was a mistake on my part (then again, I would have wondered what it would have been like to see Mark Lindsay.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t).  Aren’t you glad you shared it with me?  That’s my therapy for now.  I promise I will go back to writing normal sized entries about some pleasant bands like PiL, Bauhaus and Killing Joke.  Thanks for reading . . .