Ringo in Boston [forwarded by request]
dave prokopy
me to post to the newsgroup. please direct any comments to HIM and NOT to
ME! thanks, -dave]
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Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 10:17:50 -0400
To: pro...@iquest.net (dave prokopy)
From: pan...@mathworks.com (Greg Panfile)
Subject: Ringo in Boston
Ringo in Boston: Harborlights Pavilion, July 19th
Opening act: his name escapes me, but he wrote all the big songs for the
Eagles, like I'm Already Gone and Peaceful Easy Feeling. Great stage patter
too, and one man playing acoustic style on an electric. Highly appropriate
for what was to come...
Ringo opened with Don't Go Where the Road Don't Go. This was one of his two
high points, and as far as I could tell the only song played all night that
was composed after the Seventies...
There was a decided Backbeat feel to the early proceedings, Ringo doing I
Want To Be Your Man, and a decidedly Hamburgian feel to the next number...
Locomotion by Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad. I never liked that band,
and I thought the guy was much too much of a prancing arena ham, but the
talent level and energy was incredible. He was the best singer on stage by
far, and the best guitar player too. Later he chimed in with an extremely
cool I'm Your Captain, kind of his Day in the Life epic, and Some Kind of
Wonderful. He also did, and totally nailed, the high harmony McCartney
style lines throughout.
A constant theme was the quality contrast in the *songs* that the All-Starrs
contributed, greatest hits mostly from very commercially successful bands,
versus much of Ringo's solo and Beatle material. Unfortunately for Richie,
the material he had to work with just wasn't as good (never mind the fact
that at least five members of the band are better singers than he), for
example in comparison to:
White soul Godfather Felix Cavaliere who has absolutely not lost a step on
the Hammond or as a vocalist. People Got To Be Free, Groovin' and Good
Lovin' were his three numbers, and he nailed every note and every solo.
Like Billy Preston and Farner and to some extent, Felix was able to lock
into "testify" mode and soulfully improvise slight variations on the words
and melody that brought new real-time life and freshness to his material,
and the absolute integrity of his musicianship and heartfelt belief in the
content of his material was crystal clear. Worth the price of the ticket in
itself.
Billy Preston did the hits you'd expect, Will It Go Round in Circles,
Nothing From Nothing. Again the chops were totally there and though a note
or two was missing from the high end, this was the real deal. Unfortunately
no Get Back era material. Billy can still dance a lick too and his prance
routine was much more in the flow than Farner's. Billy seemed to be the
onstage musical leader; it was toward him that heads would turn to cue
endings and one more timers. He was smiling, grooving, adapted to all the
material he had to handle, and seemed to have a complete blast out there.
John Entwistle of the Who played bass all night, with authority and has lost
nothing there. Vocally he was never much and has lost a great deal of that;
the more difficult patches of "My Wife" were blanked; either he missed
getting anything out or heard what was coming and ducked the mike at the
last minute. In that song and "Boris the Spider" which was musically
*excellent* and a real change of pace from things like the No No No Song, he
camped over with Farner and Zak Starkey to get a mini-Who raveup going and
the three of them really smoked. Zak did a good impression of Moonie's
style, but didn't quite catch the manic frenzy and urgency of a person
trying to hit the drums as many times as possible before death or the end of
the song, whichever comes first.
Randy Bachman of the Guess Who and BTO was sort of a second guitarist most
of the night; while he has a good and tasty style and decent chops, Farner
was on another plane. Might have to something to do with the 150 pound or
so weight difference... But the better of his numbers, "Taking Care of
Business" and "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" (the latter complete with
ironically My Generation style stutters) truly rocked; this was another case
of absolutely great material that absolutely shone. And Bachman did more
than was needed on voice and guitar to carry it off.
The unknown utility player (at least to me) was Mark Rivera who handled sax
parts and acoustic guitar, along with some extraordinary high harmonies,
with soul and aplomb. He certainly looked happy to be there, but had
nothing to apologize for. And things would have been considerably less cool
without him.
Ringo was an affable version of his usual personality, joshing about being
in Texas, leading chants and handclaps, functioning excellenly in the
MC/frontman role. A change of clothing or two, towels and drumsticks tossed
to the crowd, all of that kind of stuff. As the evening went by one began
to perceive his role as using his Beatle role to put this band together, and
get all of its tickets sold, so these other guys could come out and do their
thing which was excellent. He looked happiest when he was back there just
hacking the kit side by side with his son, listening to Felix or Mark wail
away, or Billy hammer out those chromatics. The old head bounce and smile
came right back, he could have been on Ready Steady Go.
The closing number was Ringo's second highlight, With A Little Help from My
Friends. Again this was one of the best *songs* he did, so it ended up
being one of the best performances he did all night. The reverence of the
other band members for this material was evident; despite the hits they had
in the past, and how much they had nailed them yet again that night, they
had plenty of enthusiasm for doing Paul and John's vocal parts and trying to
pull off a piece of Sergeant Pepper live.
During this period, Steve Tyler of Aerosmith snuck onstage and took over
Ringo's kit, generating a reasonably smooth backbeat that certainly didn't
interfere with things, or maybed they just turned down the drum mikes.
Ringo gave him a nice introduction ("Local boy makes good...") and the crowd
gave him a nice ovation.
If you can go see this, I highly recommend that you do, whoever you are.
I've been reading a lot of revisionist crap lately about what failures baby
boomers are because we didn't conquer the Nazis or build the interstate
highway system, and what fools we all are or were for caring about things
like race relations, rock and roll, and things like that. Let's say it once
and for all: an infinite concert like the one last night, that would be
heaven; an infinite legislative session of such luminaries as Bob Dole,
George Bush, and so on would be hell. People today still read Vergil and
Catullus; does anyone know who won election to the Roman Senate in any year?
When this empire joins the ash heap of history, the cultural record of our
generation will compare quite favorably to that of any other. Meanwhile,
the empire builders will have napalm and Selma to answer for. I leave it to
the reader to choose a side.
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