I was not the oldest person there, and that is rare.
The Bellwether is a cool venue. An edifice built by Another Planet and Michael Swier, proving that as big as Live Nation is, there is still room for competitors. And when it comes to small venues, the Bellwether is so far superior to the Novo that they should tear the latter down and start over.
It was sold out, meaning people still have an attraction to Mike Campbell. And nobody had their look on, and nobody was on their phone, it felt like nothing so much as the seventies, when rock ruled.
The seventies, they get a bad rap. Corporate rock. Disco. But they were very different from the eighties, when MTV made acts worldwide phenomena we all knew, when we ended up living in a monoculture, when mainstream was everything.
Now it’s just the opposite. The mainstream is niche. And if you’re not mainstream, you’re on your own, sans support.
For all the hype about the Spotify Top 50, the Swifts and the Beyoncés and the Weeknds and the Drakes, the real action, the real excitement is elsewhere, acts that don’t dance, don’t dress up and don’t even have hit records, but live they resonate, in a world where live is ultimately everything. And I mean truly live, if you’re doing it to hard drive, if it’s the same every night, you’re doing it wrong. It’s got to be alive, it’s got to breathe, it’s got to be different, people have to believe they’re having a unique experience, that if they followed the tour to the next gig it wouldn’t be the same, the only community, the only similarity is in the room where the show is happening, and that makes you feel involved, and special. I could say this is the paradigm the Grateful Dead invented, but they were not the only ones. And they ultimately had a hit. And before they crossed over on MTV, they got airplay on FM radio when we were still listening, whereas today FM is a backwater, if you listen you probably sign up for the streaming service with commercials.
Now in the seventies rock ruled. There were different strains of rock, from heavy to progressive to straight ahead, but in any bar in seemingly any town there was a band playing on the weekend. And their goal was to be so good that they could get away with playing original material. And you’d go to the venue to drink, that’s for sure, but also to hear the band, you’d talk about this band with your friends, even though it might never get a deal, might not ever be able to play in the next state.
And speaking of playing, we still did. The Beatles started that. Soon, everybody had a guitar, everybody knew how to play, at least a few rudimentary chords, we banged it out in the garage, we sang along at parties, it was radically different from today, unless you were at the Bellwether last night to see the Dirty Knobs.
Now the difference with the Knobs from those bands of yore is Mike Campbell is a veritable superstar. And he didn’t make it on speed, like the Yngwies and other guitarists of the eighties, he made it on style, on taste, and it’s a thrill just to see him play anything. And when he takes the stage, it’s palpable, this is the guy.
And with Ferrone on drums and two lesser known but just as skilled sidemen, the Knobs hit it from the very first note, they are tight, and it’s a revelation, because this is the sound, the one that infected us, that rooted us, that meant everything to us.
Sure, there have been shows forever. But music meant much more to the boomers and Gen-X’ers than it did to the generations both before and after. You know if you were there, if you weren’t, you deny this. Or, you’re a wanker in the business trying to look hip.
And the audience did not, try to look hip that is. I didn’t see one outfit, no one dressed up, it was like the Allman Brothers and the aforementioned Dead and so many of the bands back when, they wore their street clothes on stage, the music was enough, more than enough.
I mean my generation doesn’t look so great. But even though we’re in Los Angeles, that image thing, the Kardashianism, it wasn’t evident. No plastic surgery, no injections, no three digit coifs…most of the women were like the men, in jeans, dungarees, nobody was looking to make a sartorial statement, they were there for the music.
And you know rock and roll when you hear it. But it’s such a rare event these days. You can go to the amphitheatre and see the legacy acts, but that’s something different, that’s nostalgia, you want to hear your favorites and reminisce. But Campbell and the Knobs were playing all original material, for two hours. And you didn’t need to know it to get it. The changes, the picking, the sound, that was enough.
The records are secondary in this world, nearly superfluous. It’s all about the live show, you can go not knowing the material at all and have a fine time, whereas it used to be just the opposite. You memorized the records before the show, to be plugged in.
So, I’m involuntarily throwing my arms in the air, I’m grooving, and this is completely unexpected. I mean it’s not like the Knobs are going to play the Super Bowl, I’m here in a club, but the music centered me, connected me to who I always was, even though I was wary that those days and that feeling were in the past.
So, the Dirty Knobs are far superior to a bar band. But it’s not about stardom, but the music. It was extremely enjoyable, until…
The four musicians left the stage after almost two hours, you know, before the obligatory encore, and nobody kept applauding. I was wondering if they’d just turn up the lights, whether that would be it, but that almost never happens. They weren’t clapping, but they weren’t leaving either. They knew the band would come back on. And when they did…
Mike had three guitars propped up in front of the mic. He said these were the axes he used on the originals, that they’re too valuable to take on the road, but since this is a hometown gig… And he picked up the first guitar and…played the very first track from the very first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album, “Rockin’ Around With You.” Whew!
Campbell doesn’t have quite the pipes of Petty, but the interesting thing is he talks the same way, with the same accent, it’s not Petty and it’s not a facsimile, the Knobs make these songs their own, but you know them by heart.
And what an interesting choice. You’d expect “American Girl,” or “Breakdown.”
You see it was Tom Petty’s birthday, and the band was playing his material in honor of that date. And just when you figured they’d stop, they went on. And on. And on. The Dirty Knobs played ten Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers numbers, more than anybody could expect, and they were not the usual suspects. The most obvious were “You Wreck Me,” “You Got Lucky” and “Even the Losers.” The words of the last two truly resonated. All these decades later you can visualize what they’re based upon. And you can see the economy of the songwriting. Today they throw everything in, Tom and Mike left a lot out, in song and production, which made the records transcendent, as fresh today as yesterday.
Oh, there was a rendition of “Listen to Her Heart,” the failed single from the second album. Yes, you heard the song on the radio, especially in L.A., but the band was poised for greatness and somehow “You’re Gonna Get It” did not improve the band’s status. It was good, but…a year and a half later “Damn the Torpedoes,” burst out of the dashboard with “Refugee” and the rest is history.
“You don’t have to live like a refugee”
The perspective was not only different from the boasting prominent in today’s music, but it was also different from the bombast purveyed by the English and heartland rockers. Tom Petty was slight, he wasn’t the macho cool dude, he was a thinking person, he didn’t see the world the same way as the bloviators.
Which leads me to the absolute highlight of the evening.
Now I saw Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Whisky. I heard “Breakdown” and “American Girl” on the radio in L.A., before the rest of the country cottoned to the sound. But if you want to talk about the first album, if I’m going to request a song from the first album, it’s either going to be “The Wild One, Forever,” or “Luna.” They’ve got that late night with too much humidity in the air feel.
But they did not play those last night. They played one I least expected, “Fooled Again (I Don’t Like It).”
“Looks like I’ve been fooled again
Looks like I’m the fool again
I don’t like it, I don’t like it”
Picture it, it’s easy. Petty is the victim. He thought he had something, but it was too good to be true. Not only did he lose it, he wasn’t even aware of how it was going down. All he can do is protest, tell his story in this song. And it starts off slow and quiet, but then it builds, evidences all the anger…
Now, unlike the Dirty Knobs songs in the first two hours of the performance, everybody in the hall knew the words to these Petty songs. Because that was the era, you bought the albums and you devoured them. And sure, you might have seen the band live, but mostly you knew the songs from the records.
Now Mike got the audience to sing along to his own songs, got everybody to say F*CK THAT GUY! It’s not like there was an undercurrent of talk, people were paying attention, but let’s be honest, they came because Mike was Petty’s guitarist. So when Mike gave them what they were looking for, more than they were looking for, they were elated.
I certainly was.
And the thing about those Petty records is you could hear everything, the kitchen sink was left out, so when Mike strums the chords and Ferrone pounds the beat on the drums, it’s positively primal, but it’s everything.
“Strange voice on the telephone
Telling me I better leave you alone
Why don’t somebody say what’s going on
Uh-oh, I think I been through this before”
This is not the football player, not the cheerleader, this song is sung by the other, who is living their life in the shadows, but it’s just as meaningful as yours.
“You never said you had no number two
I need to know about it if you do
If two is one I might as well be three
It’s good to see you think so much of me”
I’ve felt this. I’ve been fooled, more than once, and in certain cases by the same girl. I remember when I saw my more than crush kissing other guys at the party, out in the open, all I know is she wasn’t kissing me.
Never mind more than crushes that involved some connection, some physical activity, that I thought were leading to more, but it turned out this uber-desirable woman lived with an upper classman.
“I don’t like it
I don’t like it
I don’t like it
I DON’T LIKE IT”
This music spoke to us, it was personal. It was not made to dance to, to party to, to shoot selfies to, it wasn’t background noise, it was positively primal.
And when it was all over, it was quarter to midnight, the show had lasted two hours and forty five minutes. But this was not Springsteen giving us his all, trying to overwhelm us, beat us into submission, it was clear that Mike and his compatriots loved playing, and as long as we showed up and stayed they’d do so. It’s tough to soldier on, but Mike is playing clubs, because that’s what a musician does, play, the money is secondary.
And I can’t say the tickets were expensive. But maybe that’s just the point, it was a show, not an event, and there’s a difference. The music blended with your regular life, was part of your regular life, it was rooting, and that was more than a surprise.
And I got home and was hungover, and am still not completely centered, even though I didn’t drink an ounce of alcohol. You see I was transported, to what once was and I thought could never again be. I thought maybe I’d moved on, because nobody was delivering what I was looking for, the essence, more than stardom, more than a jukebox, but living breathing rock and roll.
The kids don’t get it, otherwise they’d have been in the audience last night. But if you’re of a certain vintage, of a certain age, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you go to see the Dirty Knobs…
You won’t be fooled again.
It’s the real deal.
