I saw April Wine perform at a local bar about a year ago. The drummer had to suck oxygen halfway through his solo.
:eek: :eek: :eek:
RJD scares the poop out of me. Not just because he and my fave Leppard, Vivian Campbell, hate each other on sight, but because he’s older than dirt AND WILL NOT GO AWAY!! Yes, he might be great to his fans but to the people he works with? I think not.
Tommy James and the Shondells. Probably not a single member of the original band left except for Tommy James, but they’re still touring and releasing albums. Absolutely baffling.
Strawberry Alarm Clock. Still touring, not sure (and don’t care) if they’re still releasing recorded material.
Two of the most mediocre bands that ever existed, who should have faded into much-deserved oblivion after their few pathetic little top 40 hits faded away, and they’re still around. There’s just no justice in this world …
(Probably should mention these are 60s bands, but that would let the young 'uns know just how much of an old fart I really am … )
God bless 'em, but without Doug Ingle (their original lead singer, organist, and main songwriter) it isn’t really Iron Butterfly as far as I’m concerned.
Tommy James & the Shondells had more than a “few” Top 40 hits (14 to be exact, plus three more credited to Tommy James alone), and had a lot more going on than their bubblegum image would suggest. The Cellophane Symphony album in particular had some extraordinarily creative and experimental cuts, specifically the title track (an extended piece of avant-garde weirdness as freaky as anything by the '70s Krautrock bands) and the proto-prog “Changes”–what other rock band was doing songs with Moog synthesizer solos in 5/4 time in 1969?
Peter, Paul & Mary.
So, who ya gonna see for your third concert? 
I’ve heard on my local classic rock station ads for a summer-of-love nostalgia concert that includes Big Brother and the Holding Company. Yep, that’s right. Considering even the most obsessive 60’s collector knows no one in the band besides the late Janis Joplin, and her voice and image totally dominated the band, what’s even the point? True the guys calling themselves the “20th Century Doors” are just as delusional, but at least the other guys in the band have modest name recognition.
Tenacious D was good…
Actually they’re the Riders on the Storm now–I think John Densmore stopped them from using the Doors name.
As for Big Brother, at least the first album they made after Janis split, Be a Brother, was pretty decent. (Janis even made a guest shot on it.) They get points for bringing Nick Gravenites in on vocals, instead of doing the obvious and hiring another belting chick singer. (That would come later.)
Here in LA, any music act you ever heard of is most likely performing somewhere around here within the next year, even if all the original members are dead (I believe that may even include solo acts).
Gladys Knight is playin the Hollywood Bowl as I type this.
The Cult and Squeeze will both be playing The Grove at Anaheim in the next couple of weeks.
Lynyrd Skynyrd is playing the Greek Theater right now, the venue where we went to see Earth, Wind and Fire . Tomorrow they have Bob Weir and Ratdog. Next month they will feature the aforementioned Squeeze, Zapp, the Beastie Boys, UB40 and Crowded House. Steve Miller will be playing there in October, right around the time my wife and I have tickets to see The Pet Shop Boys at the Hollywood Bowl.
That was the show I saw with America and Chicago. Like America, Big Brother and the Holding Company wasn’t very good at all. I didn’t enjoy them, I endured them. When Chicago finally came on stage, the difference was like night and day. Chicago can still rock.
I might add that all the bands on that show had at least one guy who was way too young to have remembered the Summer of Love. I’m 31, and some of those guys looked younger than I am. (In case you’re wondering why I went in the first place, it was because my girlfriend’s father got free tickets.) They had some young chick who sang a lot of the vocals, including filling in for Janis Joplin.
I suppose it’s my turn to be the guy who asks, “When their job title is ‘professional musician’, what do you expect them to be doing?”
He released a new album a little while back called “Last Man Standing”. It’s pretty good - covers with some very famous folks, it sounds like a lot of musicians getting together and just having tons of fun.
I found a site listing all sorts of local venues for this summer (some dates have passed), and found:
Leon Russell
Ian Hunter
Angry Samoans
Steve Winwood
L.A. Guns
Pat Benetar
W.A.S.P.
Stephen Stills
Rusted Root
Dickie Betts and Great Southern
Boz Scaggs
Ten Years After
The Bangles
KC and the Sunshine Band
Dramarama
Asia
Air Supply
New Model Army
The Plimsouls
and The Average White Band
Most of these bands that are still touring are generally playing to 500 to 2000 seat venues. They’re basically on the nightclub circuit.
How many of these old bands can still pack stadiums?
Here’s a few:
Lyrnyrd Skynyrd
The Who
The Rolling Stones
U2
The Police
Elton John
Rod Stewart
Aerosmith
Who else?
There are multiple Jefferson Airplane/Starship splinter groups out there. Grace Slick isn’t in any of them.
There are only two original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd left in the band. They weren’t supposed to be allowed to use the name if they got down to less than half of the original lineup–a good rule, if you ask me–but somehow they worked it out.
I saw an interview with Grace Slick a few years back (might have been a Behind the Music or an E True Hollywood Story), where she was asked why that was. She replied, “I do not like old people on a rock ‘n’ roll stage, and that includes myself.”
Are you sure? I checked out the website a previous poster linked to, and it was a lot of casino’s a county fairs. Sheesh, man, doesn’t anyone remember half the original band including the singer went down in a plane 30 years ago?
That brings back memories–April Wine was the first “rock concert” I ever went to, in about Grade 10 or so. (I’m 42 now.) They played at the Castlegar arena.
They were past their prime then! (But, hey, it was a real rock concert! In my small town! We had to go!)
You must be looking at that list pretty selectively. Here are some of the venues they are playing:
AT&T Center
VBCC Arena
St. Petersberg Times Forum
Innsbrook Pavilion
First Mariner Arena
RBC Center
New Orleans Arena
Philips Arena
Shoreline Ampitheater
Hard Rock Casino
FNC Bank Arts Center
To get an idea of the kind of crowd they are running with, I took the first venue on the list, AT&T center in San Antonio, and looked up other acts performing there. Coming up in the same location are The Rolling Stones, Beyonce’, Rod Stewart, Aerosmith, and Cirque du Soleil.
On the first part of their tour, .38 special is opening for them. Skynyrd still has a HUGE following. Sure, they play a lot of southern fairs, but that’s because that’s their ‘home base’. They’re written songs about playing fairs. Their rural southern boys, and playing county fairs is what they do. But do you know how many people see them at those gigs? I’ve got a DVD of one of their recent outdoor concerts, and there has to be 20,000 people or more in the audience.
They’re not just a novelty act, either. They put out an album of fairly critically acclaimed material in 2003 (Allmusic gave it 4 stars), and they released 7 albums of new material in the 1990’s. And it’s mostly the surviving members of the original band - Gary Rossington, Leon Wilkeson, Billy Powell, and Ronny Van Zandt’s brother Johnny, who looks and sounds very similar to Ronnie. Plus they picked up the drummer from Damn Yankees. These guys are pretty much all legends of Southern Rock, and they’re probably still the biggest Southern Rock band around.