Whipping Post-9/23/70
Duane’s dead.
But he’s positively alive in this clip. As well as long departed Berry and exiled Dickie.
Shot before the breakthrough of the live album what’s utterly fascinating here is it’s the Fillmore East! You’ve got memories in your brain, and that’s all they are, distant links to images past, and suddenly you’re confronted with pictures and you’re whole again, it’s like reconnecting with your birth mother!
Please notice everybody sitting down. This was before the disrespect of "festival seating", i.e. "standing". Under the ruse of getting people closer to the music, allowing them to move and groove and have beer spilt upon them, promoters oversold venues and suddenly you couldn’t see, you were constantly being bumped into and concerts became more akin to war than peace.
Gregg Allman looks like he gets laid three times a day… Could anybody really be that good-looking?
And Jaimoe and Butch play the same, but look like their children.
But Duane’s never aged. That’s the one advantage of dying, you’re frozen in time.
But this performance is not frozen whatsoever. They’re not playing for the camera, they’re playing for the collective consciousness, they don’t want to reach somebody, they want to reach EVERYBODY! Blow them away, get them to go home and tell everybody they encounter about the incredible act they saw last night.
Duane barely looks at the audience. He’s not mugging, he’s watching his fingers on the neck of his Les Paul, he’s in that reverie where you’re locked in and get everything right, today they call it the zone. That’s what’s fascinating about great music, it’s not done halfway, you’ve got to let go and run on instinct.
And Berry’s locking down the bottom. Swinging from side to side, bouncing up and down, like he’s rowing the ship.
And you can barely see Dickie’s face for the hair. There’s no stylist involved. But he’s risen to Duane’s challenge, he’s wringing the notes from his SG.
And it’s like you’re at the station. And suddenly, unexpectedly, this train comes barreling down the track. You can hear it before you see it. You perk up, pay attention, get caught in the groove, start to lament that its passing will be so brief.
You see rock and roll bands never stop and stay. They alight in your burg for a short while and then blow out to the next stop.
And when they finally pull into sight, they seem not to notice you, they’re involved in their own party, based on execution, based on excellence. It’s like you’re looking through a picture window, and your greatest desire is to reach in and touch.
Put Duane Allman in "People" and no one would care (actually, at this point, "People" didn’t even exist). He needs a haircut. But he cares more about his music than his look. What’s beautiful about him is on the inside. He didn’t need a good line of patter, he didn’t need to read Neil Strauss’s book how to manipulate and pick up women. His playing was enough. A magnetism so strong he was irresistible.
What would J. Lo say about this?
Her jaw would drop. It’s out of her experience.
And Randy would not use the word "pitchy", he’d start testifying about his days playing the bass, talk about his inspiration, his influences.
And Tyler would metamorphose into the guy he once was, who played in cover bands waiting for his one big break, which happened three years after this video was shot. Someone hungry, someone with something to prove.
The light show pulsed. The music filled every nook and cranny. I’d say this is like how it was, but this is LITERALLY HOW IT WAS!
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I don’t know how Wolfgang’s Vault gets this stuff. A great deal of it has rights issues. Still, you can protest and not watch or dive in.
And when you do, you’re mesmerized.
I want you to watch Lynyrd Skynyrd’s "Whiskey Rock-A-Roller":
Ed King is UGLY! He’s a bit overweight, he’s got a cigarette dangling from his lips, but he’s engrossed in the music, he’s wailing. This is all there is, the music. The lifestyle. Back when that was enough.
And you can see why Ronnie Van Zant resorted to wearing hats, he’s got a receding hairline. And he’s not pretty either. But he can sing the notes. He’s in a rock and roll band. He’s practiced for YEARS for this.
It’s not the best performance, but you can feel the energy, it oozes off the screen. That’s what we’re looking for, that’s what makes acts great, that quality of being alive.
And you can watch the Ramones to evidence your punk pedigree.
Better yet, catch Jethro Tull, who’ve somehow been forgotten, but were unique and great and the album cuts were as good as the singles, if not better.
And I’d recommend that you check out Manassas. A criminally overlooked Stephen Stills project that is the best thing he’s ever done outside the Springfield and CSNY.
All the great cuts are here, "Johnny’s Garden":
And "Treasure", which was long enough to set your mind free and let you drift:
But be sure to check out "Find The Cost Of Freedom":
Wherein one man on his acoustic guitar captivates the entire Winterland audience. You can’t whip this together in GarageBand, you can’t buy an axe at Guitar Center and play this the very next day, this is the culmination of hours in your bedroom while everybody’s outside trying to get their kicks.
The cost of freedom is being an outcast, not like everybody else, fighting for the right to do it your way, which is not approved, if anything, everybody else will catch up in years, maybe after you’re dead.
That’s what’s wrong with the music business today. Instead of companies chasing the artists, they’ve ripped up the track on the other side of the station, they’ve forced everybody to stay where they are, to repeat themselves. Explain to me how the winner of this year’s "American Idol" is any different from the ones who’ve won before? So you look good and you can sing, SO WHAT?
Being an artist is so much more than that.
And if you search around the site, you can find Bill Graham introducing the acts. He was not divorced from the stage, from the experience. He wasn’t hiding behind a corporate name. It was BILL GRAHAM PRESENTS, and he PRESENTED!
That’s the magic of the Internet, it’s excavated everything that was not only lost, but that we did not even know existed. It’s like we’ve discovered a plethora of King Tuts, and they’re now available to be studied.
And you lament this? You want limited distribution of CDs and radio control?
You’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Sometimes you’ve got to get back to the garden.
This is your chance.
