Tom Johnston/Doobies Playlist

1

Just when you think you got a good thing
It seems to slip away

I was not a fan of the Doobie Brothers.

“Listen To The Music” exploded on to the airwaves when I was in college, far from reality, in Middlebury, Vermont. All we had for radio was the college station, and I gave up listening to that the first week I was there. But suddenly the Doobies were featured in “Rolling Stone,” which I read cover to cover every two weeks, I did all my homework from Sunday to Tuesday, or Sunday to Wednesday, however long it took, and then I spent the rest of the week reading what I wanted to. Now you’ve got to know, Middlebury College is not for slackers. If you’re not gonna study on Saturday, don’t even think about studying on Sunday. It wasn’t long before I was considered an outlaw, a pariah. Funny how I made it and nobody else did.

You might think that’s bragging, but I’m just trying to prop up my self-image. And, in fact, one other person from my year left a mark, Eve Ensler, who wrote “The Vagina Monologues,” and also Jeanne Meserve, who you used to see on CNN. And, there was Avital Ronell, who you couldn’t miss on campus, you know the woman who’s been recently involved in the harassment case at NYU. And, of course, there was Michael Tolkin, but he transferred from Bard, to be with his girlfriend, now wife, Wendy Mogel. Actually, Tolkin and I were friends at Middlebury, but we never see each other now. You see I escaped from the cult, crawled from the wreckage to…

Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, home of the world’s best snow. I can ski on anything, but you need some snow, and my last year at Middlebury the Bowl was closed many days and I wanted to ski more… That’s right, this was a different era, there were recruiters on campus, but none of my friends met with any of them. We wanted to graduate and explore the world, find ourselves.

And I lined up the best gig in the canyon, waiter at the Goldminer’s Daughter, the closest lodge to the lifts at Alta, it’s the only time my Middlebury pedigree paid off, but I had to give up the gig after breaking my leg in an early-season freak accident at Snow Summit in Southern California. My rental skis came off ten feet in the air and I ended up breaking my leg.

But two months later I still went to Utah.

And got myself a gig at the BirdFeeder, on the Plaza, next to the tram at Snowbird.

Little did I know Snowbird was the epicenter of freestyle skiing, they even held the World Championships there that year. And I curried favor with the freestylers by scooping them giant ice cream cones, and when I heard through the grapevine they were going to Mammoth for the month of May…

I wanted in.

And I asked.

And I drove on a snowy night at the end of April to a fraternity house on the University of Utah campus where over the din of the just-released “Physical Graffiti” I coughed up my fifty bucks for rent and said I would meet the assembled multitude at the stop sign in Mammoth, a place I’d never been, on May 1st.

Actually, I stayed up all night on April 29th listening to “Physical Graffiti” with our across the street neighbors in Sandy, and then the next morning I took off for Reno, for the Hart ski warehouse, where I was to pick up a new pair of skis. En route I got a speeding ticket. I had little cash, so I had to sleep in my car. I ate Baskin-Robbins for dinner, my sister Wendy had sent me a five dollar coupon for my birthday.

And after picking up the skis the next morning, I drove to Mammoth.

Now almost no Americans other than Californians have driven 395, from Reno to Mammoth. It’s on the wrong side of the Sierras. But when you do… It’s uninhabited and the mountains are spectacular and you feel so good about yourself and then I got to Mammoth and stunningly everybody was at the stop sign and I found out…

They were going back home. That’s right, we were short a couple of hundred bucks.

But then a guy who moved to Utah from Stowe made up the difference and I called home and found out I’d gotten a $35 tax rebate and we all decided to stay. Bought end of seasons passes for fifty bucks and were promptly…

The hottest guys on the mountain.

That’s right, the best skiers in the country were from the aforementioned Little Cottonwood Canyon, still might be, and we skied what others would not, like Phillipe’s, where if if you don’t make the turn…you crash into the rocks. Now you’ve got to picture this, it’s ultra-steep, and narrow, less than twenty feet, and you’re heading for the rocks and halfway down you have to shift to your left. And if you don’t…

Most people don’t even go there.

But our tracks were there for everybody to see. We’d be sitting on the deck and people would point them out and…

You’re only young once.

And we only went to Mammoth once.

And it was in Mammoth that I fell in love with the Doobie Brothers.

2

You see Jimmy, the occupant of that U of U frat room, brought his stereo, an 8-track, to Mammoth, and his tapes only featured two groups, Led Zeppelin and the Doobie Brothers. I’d burned out on Zeppelin long before, after all, I’d been there at the beginning. And when Jimmy played “Led Zeppelin II,” I winced, I’d played that out in high school. But when he played “Physical Graffiti”…

First it was “Kashmir.” I found myself singing the riff on the chairlift.

And then it was “Ten Years Gone.” And “In The Light.” And “The Rover.” And “Boogie With Stu.” I was falling in love with Zeppelin all over again.

And when Jimmy was not playing Led Zeppelin…

He was playing the Doobie Brothers.

Now if I heard “Long Train Runnin'” one more time…

This was the era of late night television music programs. And seemingly every one featured the Doobie Brothers. “Long Train Runnin'” and “China Grove,” you couldn’t escape them.

But then, the following year, when I was at working at Star Sporting Goods on Highland before breaking my leg, “Black Water” started to percolate. There’d been a lot of hype on “What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits,” but the initial track, “Another Park, Another Sunday,” from which the quote above was taken, stiffed. The album was not living up to expectations. But suddenly…

And the thing about “Black Water” was you could sing along. My newfound buddies and I would do so in the car.

But still.

But now, I was hearing the Doobie Brothers every damn day.

And they revealed themselves to me. They were not a pop band trolling for hits, they were three-dimensional, it was the non-hits that grabbed me.

3

Now I knew “Jesus Is Just Alright” from the Byrds.

But I did not know “Rockin’ Down The Highway.” Which sounds exactly like the title, from back when we used to have driving music. You’ve only got to hear “Rockin’ Down The Highway” a few times before it’s ingrained in your soul, back when we all wanted to be set free.

But “Disciple” was just a little less obvious, but just a tad more engrossing. This was not made for the hit parade, but for the fan, who bought the album.

But my two favorite cuts on the second album are much slower and quiet. It’s “White Sun” that makes you fall in love with Tom Johnston’s voice. Whew!

And I slip away down by the water

Our music used to be personal, you heard it and you were in a bubble, where you felt protected and your best self.

But my absolute favorite is the title track of the LP, “Toulouse Street.”

It’s dark, but not pitch black.

Now “Toulouse Street” was written by Pat Simmons. The Doobies were not one note, they had multiple sounds, as a result of having multiple writers, and then…

The big album with “Long Train Runnin'” and “China Grove” was 1973’s “The Captain And Me,” and once again it’s now the title track that’s my favorite, couldn’t be farther from a single, not even an album cut for the radio, but if you know it… It’s hard to explain to those who were not there. How the deep cuts mattered so much.

But until recently, my favorite track on the LP was the opener, “Natural Thing.” Just listen to it. It’s the opening lick, the sound, it’s in your face, but subtle, and it’s addictive.

And “The Captain And Me” has “Dark Eyed Cajun Woman,” a counterpart to the Eagles’ “Witchy Woman.”

And “South City Midnight Lady”…

The album I thought was junk, in your face stuff, was not at all, I became enamored of “The Captain And Me.”

But not as much as “What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits,” the apotheosis, the Doobie’s masterpiece.

Sittin’ in my room, starin’ out my window
And I wonder where you’ve gone

We’ve all been there, with the radio on, reflecting.

“Another Park, Another Sunday” is a jewel, maybe too good for that era’s hit radio. And when it ends, you know another good thing has slipped away.

And this is the LP with “Black Water.” But it’s also got “Eyes Of Silver,” a companion piece to “Rockin’ Down The Highway,” once again, a couple of listens and it’s like you’ve known it your whole life.

And “Spirit.” It was acoustic, and so meaningful, and the picking was so exquisite.

Every track on “What Were Once Vices” delivers.

But the one I quote all the time is “Tell Me What You Want (And I’ll Give You What You Need).” It sounds nothing like the similarly titled Stones song, but it too delivers.

And then Tom started suffering from stomach problems and “Stampede” was flawed, not up to the standard of what came before, but still wholly listenable.

Tom argued for a cover of “Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While),” and it became a hit.

But the most memorable cut on “Stampede” was the Patrick Simmons number “I Cheat The Hangman.”

And my favorite is the second song on the first side, also written by Simmons, “Neal’s Fandango.”

Goin’ back, I’m too tired to roam, Loma Prieta my mountain home
On the hills above Santa Cruz, to the place where I spent my youth.

It was not only tech that was fomenting up north, even at this late date most people have never experienced the magic of Santa Cruz and the mountains towering over the town.

(Note: Making the playlist I realize I excluded Tom’s “Texas Lullaby,” which sounds like you’re riding a horse on the Texas prairie, it’s an understated great.)

4

And I immediately purchased all those Doobie albums upon returning home after that month in Mammoth, I had to relive the magic.

And the following spring, when I had to drive cross-country, I went to Music Odyssey on State Street in Salt Lake and purchased six cassettes for the drive, including the Doobies’ “Takin’ It To The Street.” Simmons was still there, but Johnston was just barely. It was a different sound.

And on the follow-up, Tom was totally gone, now Michael McDonald was truly the frontman.

And then this new incarnation of the band recorded “Minute By Minute” and achieved one of the greatest comebacks in rock history, they were as big as they ever were, albeit with a different sound.

And then the band imploded, and then regrouped with Tom at the turn of the decade, from the eighties into the nineties, and recorded two albums on Capitol and got some MTV action and then…

They went on the endless road.

You can see them in your town.

And now that Irving Azoff is the manager, they’re getting the recognition they deserve, they’re no longer being neglected, expect the Doobies to get into the Rock Hall soon…

5

So, what have we learned?

Sometimes you’ve got to be exposed to music to get it. When you can’t escape it, when you marinate in it.

I still ski. It was tough there for a while, after going every day, it’s hard to do it occasionally. Now I do it more than occasionally and wish I could have those years in the wilderness back.

Everyone there agrees that month in Mammoth was the peak of their life. Just when you think you’ve got a good thing, it seems to slip away, and never comes back.

But I’ve still got the Doobies.

I still listen to the music.

Maybe more than any other band.

Really.

———

Tom on how they named the Doobie Brothers:

Tom Johnston on the podcast this week: https://t.co/Z7qNZd332C Tom on how they named the Doobie Brothers pic.twitter.com/E8BmvWIyB5

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) September 11, 2018

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That’s right, I’ve got my own talk show on SiriusXM’s Volume, channel #106, starting tomorrow at 7 PM Eastern and 4 PM Pacific, and if you’re in between, I know you can figure out the time, I’m not one of the people labeling you “flyover country,” you’ve got the same 500 channels and 200 Mbps down and 4G as we have on the coasts, so LISTEN!

So what is this?

I’m gonna ramble for a bit, setting up the topic, stimulating your brain cells to the point you’re gonna call in and tell me whether I’m right or wrong, a jerk or…

And to tell you the truth, I want your opinions, they help form MINE!

Sure, I’m reading all day, not out of obligation, but because I love it. But feedback informs me. Kinda like the last election. My inbox was filled with Trumpers, blowing the whistle every time I wrote something leftward-leaning. I knew Trump was a force, how come the big newspapers did not? BECAUSE THEY DON’T TALK TO ANYONE! They’re faceless names inside their own bubble. Whereas music is all about connection, we’re in it together. Not that we don’t have family squabbles.

That’s right, it’s me, with my opinion. And I don’t expect you to always agree, but that does not mean I don’t think I’m right. But unlike a Congressperson, I can change my mind. How come it’s illegal to change your mind in America? All the techies keep saying failure is the key to success, but nobody in power in the straight world wants to show any vulnerability.

Speaking of vulnerability, I’d be lying if I didn’t say the negative feedback got to me. I read it, it keeps me regular. Except for the blowhards who e-mail me every day. Haven’t you got anything better to do with your life? Two secrets, the longer the e-mail, the less prone I am to read it, and the more constant an e-mailer you are, same deal.

Not that there aren’t writers who I yearn to hear from. It’s just that in today’s cacophonous world where everybody’s got a voice and nobody’s listening there’s a level of frustration that no one acknowledges. The hype keeps coming down the pike and we don’t care. But we’ve got nowhere to complain.

But you can complain on my SiriusXM show.

Then again, if you’re a one-note caller who just wants to hear yourself talk… Expect not to get on.

But if you’ve got an opinion, and you can articulate it…

P.S. The first show was gonna be on ticketing, but I’ve changed my mind, it’s now gonna be on streaming, distribution. As you all know, my mantra is “Distribution Is King,” and if you don’t agree with that, you probably support Les Moonves. That’s right, he’s the same guy today as he was last week, but he has no REACH! No power to put shows on the air and hamper Janet Jackson’s career. Vindictive people are the enemy. But the point is, the power lies with those who decide what gets heard, what gets on the TV channel, on the streaming service. But now that almost everything is on Spotify, et al, how do you get noticed, do you need the label? Never forget, Spotify’s worth more than Sony Music or Warner Music, maybe only Universal is worth more. Furthermore, you respect your major distributor, which is why Wal-Mart pays less for product than anybody else, because they order more and ship and rack more. Do you want to be at the cash register at the independent hardware store or at every Wal-Mart? Your product remains the same, it’s only the distribution that changes. This is what we’re gonna talk about. I’m interested in your take.

Bob

Oh, one more thing, the phone # is 844-6-VOLUME, in other words 8440686-5863. As for Twitter, which we’ll be watching, it’s @siriusxmvolume and #lefsetzlive.

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And you can always pull the show up on demand on the SiriusXM app.

They’re out to get him.

I didn’t like school, because the teachers were so bad. Forget that they were limited. they wanted to keep you in a box. Make sure you were somebody contrary to your inner tuning fork. They wanted you to conform. But when you found a teacher who took the lid off the jar, who wanted to expand your mind with no limits, it was scintillating, you couldn’t wait to get to class, but it happened so rarely. Like with Mrs. Hurley. She posted “Time” article on “Alice’s Restaurant” on the bulletin board. We went to see Janis Ian at Philharmonic Hall. Saw “MacBird” Off-Broadway. You couldn’t wait to get to class.

But most teachers are idiots and the students are drones.

Of course I’m overstating, but your reaction is the point I’m making… Society is all about conforming. And if you don’t?

You know that Elon Musk smoked weed on Joe Rogan’s podcast. It was all over the news. Well, in case you didn’t know, marijuana is legal in California. The media’s outrage, especially the financial media, illustrates how out of touch these old men are. This is why Trump got elected. You can’t swear in the newspaper, but people swear all day long. The newspaper reports about people who lead. Elon Musk is doing the leading.

GM killed the electric car. Elon Musk resuscitated it.

Now for the uninformed, and that seems to be nearly everybody, of course electric cars don’t pollute through their nonexistent tailpipe, but the key here is they’re more efficient than gasoline cars. It takes less energy to go forward. Of course you need to generate electricity to power them, but significantly less than the amount needed for gasoline cars.

Of course you could power these cars with solar. But Obama lost the government’s money propping up some losers so we should abandon it, throw out the baby with the bathwater, even though foreign nations are using ever less fossil fuel power. They’re also pushing forward electric automobiles. They’re concerned about the future. In America, we like to live in the past.

Never mind SpaceX. We were depending upon the Russians for our rocket power, Musk has pushed forward space technology significantly, in a way the government didn’t.

But he’s an arrogant loser who must be stopped.

Now that dope headline… It was written by people who didn’t listen to the podcast. That’s the media we’ve got today, all news and no analysis, unless it’s about politics, which is now a team sport where too many make up their own facts. But if you listened to the podcast you’d find out…

Elon Musk is incredibly boring. I’m sure women are attracted to him for his money and power, maybe his mind, but being in a relationship with him… There’s more dead air than you’ll find in space. Rogan asks a question and then…Musk thinks. This is not a politician with canned answers at the ready.

And speaking of politicians… You can’t make it without backers, you’re sold out by the time you get traction. Rogan keeps on asking Musk if he’s bringing his ideas to somebody, as if Musk needed approval. Rogan’s living in Hollywood, where you roll up a team of producers and talent and try to convince someone at the studio or Netflix to pay for your enterprise, employing smoke and mirrors all the way. The sale is how you get paid, and the buyer knows this, which is why they might put profit-sharing in the contract, but you never get paid.

Musk made a lot of money. He spends his own.

But he did borrow some. Tesla went public.

Therefore there’s a cabal watching the company like baby boomers follow baseball. It’s all minute data, not big picture.

So Musk got frustrated with those betting against him, the short sellers.

Wouldn’t you be pissed at those wanting you to fail?

And he got uppity during the quarterly numbers call. Wouldn’t you? You’re changing the world and you’ve got to listen to these bozos asking inane questions that have got nothing to do with what you’re really doing. We’ve seen this before, fifty years ago, with Bob Dylan. Just listen to “Ballad Of A Thin Man,” or watch “Don’t Look Back.” The frustration is palpable and the arrogance is evident and Zimmy is not too lovable. Not long after this he retreated to the woods and has been an enigma ever since. He wants to control his own narrative. Dylan tells lies and fables and confounds your expectations. Musk ain’t much different.

Joe Rogan is not dumb. But at first he seems a horrible interviewer until you realize how much Musk is not forthcoming. But Joe’s employing locker room humor in a serious discussion, all that self-deprecating crap used before they take down those truly superior by the by.

But if you listen to what Musk has to say…

He’s anti-AI. But nobody would listen to him.

Then he says the merger of humanity and tech is already here. Your smartphone is an extension of your body, the only problem being the pathway is too narrow and slow. This is what the anti-tech people always get wrong, they’re always trying to deny the present, never mind the future, and get us to return to the past. The smartphone enables production, makes you smarter, it’s a computer in your hand. You don’t want to abandon it because it’s part of you. Give up chastising Apple and Facebook, telling them to put limits on usage. That’s missing the point, we don’t want to use our smartphones and apps less, we want to use them MORE!

This is the merger of identity and technology that Ray Kurzweil has been talking about. This is the Singularity. And it’s already happening, and it’s only gonna get worse/better.

You hear people all the time telling you what they don’t need. They don’t need a new phone, they don’t need a faster connection, don’t listen to them, they’re the ones being left behind, they can’t handle the future.

But the future is coming. Musk is optimistic. He says he’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

The media is pessimistic. Just like the educational system. The teachers and administration want to drag you down into the hole they’re in (thanks Dylan!) But if I could sit with Musk, if I could be exposed to some of these thinkers…

They’re changing our lives. But the people “in charge” are too stupid to understand them. Musk spoke with fifty governors, i.e. all of them, about the detriments of AI and…they didn’t get it.

Congress doesn’t get it, they’re just a brake after the fact. And of course we need brakes on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, but if you don’t take the time to understand how they truly work, live with those running them as opposed to questioning them for a few hours every other year, you’ll never get it.

Maybe Tesla will go broke. Maybe the fact that the Chief Accounting Officer left after a month is significant. But let’s get some perspective here, before Musk and Tesla the electric car was dead. Now the electric car is the future. Get your head out of your rear end and look at the rest of the world, they’re moving quickly into electrics.

We try to pull down those who are the outliers. We’re self-satisfied. If you’re smart, you’re a wuss to be made fun of. America is all about conforming. Just ask the millennials, they don’t want to stick out, they just want to fit in.

Of course Musk has gone off the rails a few times, like criticizing the savior of the cave kids.

But you can understand why he wanted to take Tesla private, so he didn’t have to listen to these uneducated naysayers all the time.

Musk is pushing the envelope. All the while having fun. He considers the Tesla a toy, the X will dance to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. But the S will beat the pants off a Porsche, which is why Porsche is now going electric.

The future is coming, stop denigrating those who are leading us there.

Electric.

If you’d have asked me whether I wanted to go, I would have said no. But my friend Steve was in from New York, and he’s their longtime agent, and we were gonna have dinner before, so…

I said I was in.

We went to Republique, the old Campanile space. Did you ever go there on Thursday for Grilled Cheese Night? Yup, a whole menu of grilled cheese sandwiches from ten to twenty bucks, definitely a memorable experience. Hell, we celebrated my father’s seventieth ten days before he died upstairs at Campanile, he could barely eat, but I remember it. And Steve e-mailed he was gonna be late, so I looked for a parking spot in the neighborhood. Unavailable. I found a lot, where you paid by meter, but as I got out an obvious concertgoer leaned from his car and asked me if I’d ever parked there before. I said only during the daytime. Then he pointed to the sign that said no parking after nine unless you had a permit? Huh? Who does this work for? I mean if I live in the neighborhood I want to park before nine… And eventually I found a spot on a side street where the meter would end before free parking began. I’m always anxious about this, I hate trying to beat the odds, but I left it there. Oh, I could have gone back and parked at Republique, where I was just about to pay before I got Steve’s message about being late, but that’s when I realized the restaurant and the venue were within walking distance, did I want to pay twice? No. But then as we stood outside the venue, waiting for our tickets, I asked myself, can you walk seven blocks at eleven o’clock at Wilshire and La Brea? And it ended up being twelve-thirty and no one tampered with my car but I wouldn’t want to die for thirty five bucks, what it would have cost me to park twice. The dilemmas of living in Los Angeles, where there are more cars than spaces but you have to drive everywhere. Oh, you could Uber but I don’t drink and it would be more than parking and…

The Dover Sole was INCREDIBLE! I just figured I’d get fish because I didn’t want to be bloated at the gig, but I didn’t expect it to be filleted at the table and to have an exquisite taste and I ate it as we continued to talk…

About the old days. That’s what we baby boomers do, talk about the gigs and the players and in this case Andy Slater’s movie about Laurel Canyon, premiering at the L.A. Film Festival. Which led to stories about Brian Wilson, because APA is his agent, and then Andy told the story of becoming friendly with Hot Tuna. I’m loath to tell it, but otherwise I don’t know if you’d ever hear it, he tells it so much better. But in short, he got friendly with Vinny the roadie when he was in college in Atlanta and he and a buddy helped Vinny schlepp the equipment. And then asked Vinny whether they could do the same at the Palladium the following week, which was a seventeen hour drive, and after Vinny said yes they got a drive-away car and Andy didn’t tell his parents he was home and ultimately Andy went to Paragon Sports to make a Hot Tuna satin jacket. He sent one to Jorma and…

Now Hot Tuna is not the mainstream music business. For a while, back in ’72, it was close, Jorma and Jack were still riding high from the Airplane, but today does anybody know that Hot Tuna exists?

Most of the crowd were antiques. Longhairs. Not cleaned-up for the office. Although there were a few youngsters there.

And did I tell you it was SOLD OUT??

Every night in Los Angeles acts with records on the hit parade play big rooms where people sing along to the manufactured show. That’s what they think live music is all about. But Hot Tuna live was not a show, but a concert. And there’s a difference.

So we went back to the dressing room and I was stunned how tiny and thin Jack Casady was. Jorma was big and burly like a lumberjack, and Jorma was thrilled the gig was sold out, L.A. is not one of their strongest markets and both men were very friendly but we had to leave because they were about to go on. Oh, did I tell you we had to walk across the stage to get to the dressing room? I was embarrassed, I thought there would be catcalls, but nobody said a thing. The difference between stage and audience was close to nonexistent, you see at a Hot Tuna show, everybody’s in it all together.

And then Jack and Jorma hit the stage, along with a drummer, and you start thinking, how old are these guys?

So you pull up Wikipedia to find out Jack is seventy four and Jorma’s about to be seventy eight! And it’s then that you realize, this is no different from students in the sixties excavating old blues artists to play on their college campus.

And that’s what they were playing, the blues, but Jorma was WAILING!

Now this is mindblower. Because of his age. Because it’s no longer about guitar heroes. Because you think that records can be manufactured, but this was positively real.

And that’s when I realized it was like the Fillmore.

And those days are long gone.

Of course you wanted to see your favorites, but sometimes you went no matter who was on stage, for the atmosphere, for the experience.

This is different from waiting for the hit and taking selfies, you’re going to marinate in the music, to be taken away, to let your mind drift. This is the true Grateful Dead experience! That’s right, before it got out of control in the mid-seventies, before it became ridiculous in the eighties, you went to a Dead show and they played for four hours, most of it noodling and experimentation, trying to find the essence. You hung, and not on every note. Sure, there were moments of climax, especially during the final hour, but really it was a communal experience that was the other, away from the mainstream. That’s right, before the Airplane and the Dead were popular, they were nobodies. This is not teenage rappers going from zero to hero on their first record, prepubescent pop stars singing canned music for their peers. No, you had to be in the know, and if you were, you were way ahead of the scene. Now you’re way behind the scene, but the scene is so vapid that a gig like this is a revelation.

And despite not ending until long after midnight, no one left.

There was a break in the middle.

And in the second set, the band came alive. It’s subtle, and so different from playing to hard drive. Suddenly, everything clicked, Steve Kimock was in on the action, and your ear pricked up, you could tell the difference, the extended version of “Good Shepherd” was the highlight, you didn’t want it to end.

And it’s not ending for Jorma and Jack. They’re musicians, they’re gonna play till they drop.

And the Airplane’s money was held up by manager Matthew Katz.

In other words, these are not rich rock stars living on past income, Jorma and Jack are in their heyday now, working for a living.

It was so strange, you could walk near the stage and feel like you were bonding with the act. Or go back and have a conversation and feel the music soothing you. It was a night out. Sure, there was merch, but no over-expensive food and drink, this was positively in the past, when it came to ethos anyway.

Now the jam band fans are aware of Hot Tuna, they play Peter Shapiro’s Capitol Theatre, then again, jam band music peaked fifteen years ago, it had a good run, but Blues Traveler ain’t gonna be on the hit parade again any time soon. Tedeschi Trucks does good business, but if you don’t know, you don’t know. Which is so different from the era when Jack and Jorma were kings. When fans knew the entire music scene, what was out there, and a hit could come from left field.

So should you go?

I’d say young people should especially. To see the POSSIBILITIES! Full room of groovers, with no parents in the quiet room waiting to take their kiddies home. This was not big business, it was THE BUSINESS!

But it doesn’t matter to Jack and Jorma whether you come or not, they’ll still perform, they’ll still do their act. Playing for hours to get it right. Septuagenarian Jack even started to jump in the middle of the second set. Not exactly like Eddie Van Halen used to, but Eddie had a hip replacement and Eddie is younger yet you’re listening to Jorma and thinking of Eddie. Eddie is glorified as the king, along with Clapton and a few other pickers, but the truth is there are more than that, and each person has their own style. It was not cookie-cutter, it was different.

And it was different last night.