It was like the Fillmore.

Only it happened at a hellhole in the middle of nowhere.

Actually, not a hellhole, that’s the amphitheatre in Glen Helen, which I last went to when it sported the moniker “Blockbuster,” it would be best if they both disappeared. The shed began with Tanglewood, but a few decades back every local promoter built one on the cheap and although they afford a night under the stars, almost all have no soul, unlike my beloved Fillmore East, which began as a Yiddish live spot, then became a movie theatre and had its heyday with rock until Bill Graham shut it down in 1971 citing economics.

And this tour is based on economics. Everybody needs money. Did you read that Johnny Depp article in “Rolling Stone”? No matter how rich you are you can blow all your cash, and so many who made it back then did not reap the rewards of those plying the boards today.

So the FivePoint is in Irvine on land that used to be the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station base. That’s right, a vast field of nothingness, but you’ve got to applaud the free parking.

But there’s no hill, no lawn for picnicking. I wouldn’t be surprised if I went back today and the whole amphitheatre was gone. It all looked so temporary. From the honeywagons to the foldup seating to the bleachers… The only thing professional was the stage, and its accoutrements. The sound was impeccable, and the big screens were both large and dense. So you could get into the music.

And I did.

The opener was Ann Wilson. Who’s still got her pipes, but should get back together with Heart. Sure, we want to hear her do covers, but mostly we want to hear Heart songs.

And then came Paul Rodgers.

Now this was an Orange County crowd, not the one you see on TV, not the one that lives on the beach, but the true denizens. Used to be L.A. and Orange County merged, but those days are kaput, traffic is just too bad, it literally took us two and a half hours to get there from Santa Monica, which is longer than it takes from Stockbridge to Boston, although we zipped right home in an hour. And these were not young ‘uns…

These were fifty and sixtysomethings. Some of whom dressed up for the evening, but most of whom partook back in the seventies, of drugs, alcohol and music. This was before the era of haves and have-nots. Before the era when you were relaxing you were falling behind. When we sat in front of the stereo, zoned out, and went to bars and lived for the music.

So Paul is taking a risk, with his new band Free Spirit, comprised of Deborah Bonham’s backing band, he’s playing a plethora of Free tunes, many of which the audience did not know, but he needs to grow, he just can’t do the same old thing.

And then he played “Feel Like Makin’ Love”…

“Baby, when I think about you”

And that’s when women popped up all over the amphitheatre, grooving to the music, thrusting their arms in the air…

FEEL LIKE MAKIN’ LOVE
FEEL LIKE MAKIN’ LOVE TO YOU!

These were not the social x-rays you see in the society pages. They had some miles on them, just like their now-seated male companions. There was no plastic surgery, maybe a few more pounds, but you could see straight back to that era, these were the girls you wanted to hang out with, who winked, who were up for anything, who wanted to have a good time, who were not afraid of the music…the ones we wallflowers were infatuated with. And with the music infecting their souls last night one was infatuated with them again.

And for someone who never saw Free, which is just about all of us, but is besotted with their material, Paul played a spectrum of legendary songs, beginning with “Little Bit Of Love,” going on to “Wishing Well,” “My Brother Jake” and even the STEALER, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I missed Paul Kossoff’s guitar, whom Rodgers believes is the greatest axeman of all time, and he’s worked with Page, May…

But the audience embraced “Mr. Big.” And to hear “Fire And Water” was to jet back to the past, when I first bought that album, back in my first year of college.

But the scene-stealer, the one that truly resonated, was “Ready For Love,” sung by its writer Mick Ralphs on the Mott The Hoople album “All The Young Dudes” and remade on Bad Company’s first.

This rock and roll music, it makes you feel good, it squeezes out all the bad feelings, it has you thrusting your arm in the air, it has you singing along. When done right, nothing else matters.

And nothing else mattered last night.

And now everybody was into it, and then Paul played his legendary hit.

ALL RIGHT NOW!

And it was and still is. That’s how I felt last night, all right NOW!

And backstage, which looks like it was carried intact from the old Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, I asked Paul why he didn’t play “Bad Company,” the eponymous track, I thought it had to do with mood, but Paul wanted to separate the acts, the perception of the audience, and then I told him I was gonna go out front, to see Jeff Beck, and Paul said there was no problem, I’d be able to HEAR HIM!

And boy could you.

This is the greatest rock guitarist of all time, still playing live, looking worse for wear in his seventies, but his playing… He made it look so easy, yet it’s so hard.

And it was a master class, because of the aforementioned big screens, which focused on him. You could see his fingers pluck the strings, you could see him move the whammy bar, you were positively stunned.

And if the girls loved Paul…

The boys were there for Beck. It was kind of like a Rush show, guitar geeks there to pray at the altar.

And Jeff did not disappoint.

Let’s start with the band. Jeff Beck is single-handedly doing more for women in music than seemingly any other man. He has a long history of employing women, from Jennifer Batten to Tal Winkenfeld. Last night, his bassist was Rhonda Smith, the Canadian who spent ten years with Prince. I know, I know, women are famous for playing bass, but Rhonda levitated the instrument to a new height, when she soloed early in the set, your jaw dropped. This was a trained musician, who was exhibiting chops without showing off, it was a revelation.

And on cello (and sometimes twelve-string guitar!) was Sonus Quartet member Vanessa Freebairn-Smith. And for a good part of the show, her playing was lost in the mix, but there were other moments where her bowing shone through.

And then on drums…

Straight from “Catholic Girls” (and BOYS), was the man himself, veteran of Zappa and more sessions than one can count, VINNIE COLAIUTA!

Now if you’re counting the best drummers of all time, Vinnie’s on the list, even if you didn’t know who he was, you were wowed. He wasn’t showing off, just keeping the beat and adding flourishes and you realized that Jeff had surrounded himself with SUPERSTARS!

And it was not a greatest hits show, it was almost as if he said to himself if he’s bothering to go on the road, he might as well make it interesting to himself, which is probably why these players signed on.

And you’d have to be a muso nonpareil to know the initial songs, a Billy Cobham cover, “Stratus,” and a Mahavishnu Orchestra cover, “You Know You Know,” but it didn’t matter, it was like you were jetted into outer space, to experience the work of an alien, knowing soon it would end and you’d be left in silence, you had to pinch yourself.

And then the unmistakable “Morning Dew,” with a vocalist…

JIMMY HALL??

Whom you might remember from Wet Willie, “Keep On Smiling,” sure, he sang on Beck’s “Flash,” but what’s he been doing all these years, is this what happens, you become infatuated with music and can’t give up?

And speaking of giving up, the couple next to me departed, but everybody else stayed, this was mostly unfamiliar guitar god material, I thought people would leave, but they did not.

And then a cover of “Little Wing”??? Which Derek and Sting made famous as covers of Jimi Hendrix’s original?

And then there were the traditional numbers…

“Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers,” exquisite as ever.

“A Day In The Life.”

And my personal favorite, “Brush With The Blues.”

And then a rollicking cover of “Superstition,” which Stevie Wonder gave to Beck and then took back. And it was…

Over.

Whew!

It was only 10:50, did this venue have a curfew? Unions? I mean who would you be disturbing out here in the middle of nowhere?

But Jeff came back to applause, and just he and Vanessa, the cellist, did a cover of Jeff Buckley’s cover of Benjamin Britten’s “Corpus Christi Carol.” It couldn’t have been more quiet, it couldn’t have been more at odds with the mood, which is what made it so spectacular, like being at a chamber music concert.

And then…

Jimmy came out and blew harmonica into the microphone, displaying heretofore unknown excellence, on the old rock/soul nugget “Going Down.”

DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN

We all know this, the band was firing on all cylinders.

And then the lights came up and it was truly done.

I was expecting an oldies show, rooted in the past, another night on the endless road in the middle of nowhere.

And although we were in the middle of nowhere, that’s not what happened.

Ann Wilson was hampered by appearing in daylight. But where else are you gonna get such a stellar opener, not even at the Fillmore!

And fifteen minutes later you got one of the greatest rock voices of all time, still intact, still powerful, playing songs true fans knew by heart, some of which you never thought you’d hear again.

And then a guitar god putting on a master class, a hall of fame performance, for seemingly nobody but himself and his bandmates. It’d be like running into McCartney in a bar, or Jagger at a house concert. HOW COULD THIS BE?

So I didn’t want to listen to the radio on the way home, I just wanted to bask in the sound and the experience.

There were seemingly no youngsters in attendance, this was not Steve Miller playing his hits for a generation that still hears them on the radio, the audience was not being replenished, rather this show was for people who’d been there, who’d lived through it.

And they were not disappointed.

And for one night, in the middle of 2018, it was like it was the seventies all over again. When giants walked the earth, when musicians were the pinnacle of society, when we all were addicted to the radio, when we all built our collections to exhibit on stereos we scrimped and saved for, when we all LIVED FOR THE MUSIC!

You shoulda been there!

Spotify

YouTube

He doesn’t always sound like this. That’s right, you’ve got to hear Greta Van Fleet’s rendition of

“Rolling In The Deep” on Spotify

It’s quite remarkable, you’d almost think they wrote it, kinda like Zeppelin being “influenced” by all those blues numbers way back when.

But on “When The Curtain Falls,” Josh Kiszka is channeling Robert Plant from the early seventies and if you were there for the original, you might be offended, but today’s audience was not, and they want something new.

What kind of stereo did you have growing up? My dad supplied us with an endless stream of “record players,” the first one gray, two of them pink, truly, my dad was into deals, with heavy tonearms and built-in speakers that we played our records on. My parents had a Columbia console in the living room, where we never went, with an external speaker that I once connected directly to my electric guitar and blew out the lights in my house, not realizing an amplifier was necessary. And then in the sixties an addition was built behind our split-level and my parents invested in a separates system, with components by ADC, other than the turntable, which was a Garrard, which I had to ask permission to use. By this time my albums were treasured, I never touched the vinyl, I took care of my records, preserving them for posterity, believing they evidenced my identity, and the irony is that vinyl, all of which I still have, is now back, then again the stuff I’ve got was cut analog for analog reproduction, and it makes a difference.

Anyway, my parents had a friend who worked at CBS, who ran their audio division, and when I was a senior in high school my sister and I were blessed by Columbia components, but don’t be too wowed, the speakers were small, the sound was not impressive, but it was certainly better than the all-in-ones.

And I never got a great stereo in college, because my parents wanted me to pay for it, and I had no ready source of income, and they were convinced it would get stolen, that was rampant back then, theft of components, along with bicycles, my white Peugeot was ripped-off the last day of freshman year, but eventually, I found myself ensconced in an apartment in Los Angeles and I bought the stereo of my dreams.

With JBL L100s.

What did you have? Off-brand stuff? That was how Cal Stereo made money, by manufacturing its own no-name speakers. And then there was Rogersound Labs in the Valley, with its own speakers, and if you wanted to spend less, there was the Advent, which superseded KLH and AR, and was pretty damn good for the price, which was $125 at first, and then $149 apiece. But the JBLs, which they used in studios, they retailed for $349 per speaker, and it was hard to get a discount.

And the salesman said the JBLs were bright, and the only amp that would sound good was the Sansui, or the Luxman, which was way out of my price range, so I ended up with an AU11000, sans tuner, but with 110 watts a channel, and that rig brought the THUNDER!

That’s what it was all about.

There’s some thunder today, but really it’s just bass, emanating from jacked-up car stereos playing hip-hop. I’m convinced we get the music our systems can reproduce, and acoustic music sounds bad on MP3s/streams through earbuds, but rock sounds even worse, for that thin-band stuff hip-hop is best, didn’t Beats advertise they came with bottom?

But the thunder was not only bottom, it permeated the entire range. Like that Maxell ad, featuring those JBL L100s, which made the listener’s hair blow back, no one under fifty remembers, but those older than that, we’re all familiar with the image.

So the goal was to get the best stereo your money could buy, drop the needle, and make not only yourself shake, but your whole damn HOUSE! You turned it up loud enough to shut out all surrounding noise, the music soaked up the atmosphere, that was the essence of rock. But when you listen to Greta Van Fleet’s “When The Curtain Falls” on earbuds, computer speakers…

You’re missing the essence, the thunder. It sounds thin, when it’s supposed to sound MASSIVE!

And the funny thing is you’ll dismiss “When The Curtain Falls” at first, assuming you were around way back when, but then you realize it’s more about the riff than the vocal, that the guitar-playing is not that far away from “Houses Of The Holy” and “Physical Graffiti.” Don’t cry heresy, there’s truly similarity, but can the audience be converted without the big rigs, without the stereos of yore?

You remember how it was. Back before iPhones, back before selfies, back when it was about them, not you, when the stars were on stage and you stood in the audience nodding your head, the sound so loud that you couldn’t speak to the person next to you anyway.

That’s how “When The Curtain Falls” should be heard.

And it’s not burning up the streaming services, and the rock radio format is a ghetto. Then again, Charli XCX said radio no longer mattered in “Rolling Stone,” and Five Seconds Of Summer shifted singles midstream, to great success. Meaning…

The old rules are kaput. Now is the time to take chances, like the above cover of “Rolling In The Deep.” You put stuff out and see what resonates. Satiate the core. Let them spread the word. If you’re playing the old game of one track, pushing it for a year, you’re missing out. That’s how you build a track, but not FANS! Fans don’t care if anybody else likes the act, they’re invested, they’re paying fealty, they’ll show up at the gig, where rock is built.

That’s right, today it’s all about the live show, the opposite of the pop ethos, where it’s built on radio and television and you go to hear a perfect rendition live, oftentimes on hard drive, no, with rock you want it to be a bit different, oftentimes a bit faster, with more power, with more energy.

And Greta Van Fleet is succeeding there.

And the key is they’re young. In an era where Vine stars have already gone on to their day jobs. The generations keep changing, and those prognosticating have often seen too much, they can’t see the show through the eyes of the audience.

But if you’re open-minded…

At first you want to turn “When The Curtain Falls” off, it seems ersatz. Then you get to the change, the chorus, and you want to let the track play through, and then that riff infects you and you find yourself playing the track over and over again, forgetting all about Robert Plant.

It’s not “Whole Lotta Love.” But it’s not me-too, at least not when compared to the other rock acts on the scene today.

Greta Van Fleet is just one monster away from breaking through.

Don’t forget, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were long on experience. These guys are brand new, at least to the masses, they’re figuring it out, maybe they’re spearheading a new movement.

Then again, shenanigans on the road are passe, because of camera phones.

But never underestimate the power of music. When done right, it’s not a trifle, it’s not something to be played in the background, rather it’s positively foreground, you need it to stay alive, it makes you feel you’re not alone in this world, it amps up your energy, eliminates your depression, makes you think not being in the mainstream is cool, that you can survive without Instagram followers, as long as this music is channeled into your soul.

But it’s best on a big rig.

That’s right, Jake Gold returns for a wrap-up on this year’s Music Media Summit in Santa Barbara. This is the last podcast in this series, hopefully you enjoyed peeking inside the conference and are motivated to come next year!

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ASK QUESTIONS

People will tell you anything, but you’ve got to ask them.

This was my father’s mantra, YOU GOTTA ASK!, to the point where I developed social anxiety, I was embarrassed every time he’d engage, but he was right. He also taught me to be nice and make friends. People react positively to niceness. And the game changes, used to be if you said you were a lawyer, you got respect, now people become defensive and give you worse service. Furthermore, my father taught me how to prove a point, by making analogies, by telling stories himself. He’d always call for the president of the company, the person who could make a decision. If the person on the line said the president was out of town, or unavailable all day, my father would ask for the person who would run the company if god forbid the president died, there was always someone in charge. This taught me not to waste time with the person who cannot make a decision. I know, I know, they’re nice, they’re part of the hierarchy, you’re building a relationship, you’re gonna hug the company to death. But if the person in charge says no, you’re screwed, so it’s best to go to the top right away, no matter what anybody says. And the stunning thing is you can reach the top, especially today, with the internet, via Twitter. But don’t be a jerk. If you call the person an a-hole, they’re not going to respond, but if you lay out your problem they oftentimes will, Michael Rapino responds to e-mail and tweets, he wants his customers to be satisfied. But if you’re the squeaky wheel, always complaining, always looking for an edge, you’re gonna win and then ultimately lose, because people can detect this behavior, you don’t want to be a schnorrer. So if you’ve got a problem, if you think there’s an injustice, make contact with the person who can make a decision, who can solve your problem. Tell a story, length is no issue, unless you’re on Twitter, you want to demonstrate that you’re reasonable, but in this case things didn’t work out. Remind me when we’re together to tell you the story of the K2 skis, and my Apple Powerbook…

GAIN BACKGROUND

Today’s story was all about Bill Browder. Who? If you were paying attention, playing the home game, you read my article about his book “Red Notice“.  Putin is pissed about the Magnitsky Act, which Browder made happen. I could explain the news, but if you’re not reading it… But my point is Browder illustrated what is really happening in Russia, the Magnitsky Act is in the news multiple times a month. Furthermore, if you trust Putin today, you didn’t see “Icarus,” wherein Putin lies straight to our faces, that’s right, Bryan Fogel lays out the facts and Putin denies them. Being a citizen of the world is being informed. You can’t know everything, but you want to know a lot, if for no other reason than when you run into someone you know what they’re talking about. Happens to me all the time, someone starts telling me a story and I’m familiar with what they’re talking about because I read the news in the WSJ or the NYT or Bloomberg. The news itself may not help me in my life, but the fact I’m up to speed in conversation pays incredible dividends, people bond to those who know their story.

BE PERSONAL

This relates to the first paragraph above. It’s about people, not facts. I had a two hour lunch with a record company CEO today and we only talked business for five minutes. It’s about the bond, if you keep pitching without a relationship, you’re not gonna get what you want. You have to KNOW these people! That’s how you get a job, no one wants to hire someone they don’t know. They want someone to vouch for you, someone who is intimately familiar with you. That’s right, you cannot get a gig without a connection, and that’s a GOOD thing! Because the world runs on trust and you need people you can trust, you can’t supervise people 24/7, you need to know they’re not only not criminals, but they can do the job, which is all about finishing, which most people cannot, they’ve got so many excuses. If someone blows deadlines, get rid of them/ignore them. There’s rarely a good excuse. They’re just waiting to feel right so they can do the best job, better to find someone who can get the job done, even if it’s not perfect.

ANALYZE

Information is nothing without context. Figure out how to put the pieces together. This is what an elite school will teach you, one with essay exams as opposed to objective tests. I know, I know, there’s this Ivy League backlash, and I’m not saying you cannot make it if you’re from another school, or cannot make it without schooling at all, but that’s a very thin layer of people. What elite institutions do is teach you how to think. It’s not about covering what’s in the book, if you can’t read, you’ve got bigger problems, but how you put the pieces together. Sure, this act grossed a lot last time around, but does that mean they’ll do well this time? Or the gross number is big, but the dates didn’t go clean, does this mean the fanbase is moving on?

ASK MULTIPLE PEOPLE

Don’t trust one person for the answer, even if he or she is an expert. The more people you talk to, the more perspective you get, the more things become clear. This happens to me all the time. I’ll go to one store and hear one story and then to another and that salesperson will contradict the first and then I go to a third establishment and the pieces start to come together. And all information is not created equal, this is the 10,000 hours rule. It’s not about 10,000 hours of practice, it’s about 10,000 hours of HARD practice! If you spend 10,000 hours on the bunny hill, you’ll never be a World Cup skier. So find people who’ve tested themselves.

MOST PEOPLE ARE FULL OF CRAP

Intentionally or not. There was a great story in the NYT a decade ago that independent auto repair shops are not intentionally ripping you off, they’re just incompetent, they think they’re doing a good job. Just because the person telling you the story is confident, that does not make it true. And as a matter of fact, the best sources are frequently less than confident, because they know what they don’t know, they’re always re-evaluating their position. And it’s a rare male who will tell you he does not know something. And males are about ego. They want to look good. So, on many issues, you’re better off asking a woman, if they have expertise in the area.

CONCLUSION/TELLING A STORY

It must be logical, laid out, told in a linear fashion, from beginning to end. I don’t want to go all middle school on you, but too many people don’t know how to tell a story. It’s not important to tell the premise or conclusion first, just that the audience be able to follow it. You’re taking them on a trip, building an edifice, just because it’s clear in your mind that does not mean it’s clear in theirs. Although you will find some people cannot follow a story, no matter how clearly you tell it. But when you tell a story coherently, with confidence, people respect that, you’ll move up the food chain, because no boss can do all the work, they depend upon subordinates, who report to them. They want you to do the work and report. They don’t want to hear your dog ate your homework, what you ate last night, unless it’s relevant. Length is fine, as long as the listener has time.

DON’T HOG THE FLOOR

Don’t talk unless you have something to say, when it comes to business anyway. Some people abhor silence and feel a need to fill it. Train yourself to hold back. He who speaks first rarely triumphs in the end.

LIFE IS MADE UP OF STORIES

Which is why television and movies are so triumphant. It’s all about the narrative, that’s how we communicate. Listen and tell. And if you listen, once again, people will tell you ANYTHING! Because in this alienated, narcissistic world, no one cares how another person feels. There are too many show-offs. You want to make the teller of the story feel comfortable, feel attended to, feel loved. If you hit a roadblock, back off, but this is rarely the case. People not only want to talk, they want to help, as long as you’re not obviously using them. If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to get to the ask, the person will offer what you want. If you do get to the ask, don’t see the person as a vehicle, someone to be used and discarded. It’s great if the ask benefits the person asked, but if not, if it’s to your benefit, it’s best if it’s about a problem you have as opposed to jetting you to the top of the class.

COMMUNICATION

Voice, phone calls, text, tweets, that’s what they’re all about, communicating and connecting. And the irony is so much of what is done online is about bragging…I did this or that. Think about entering someone’s heart, that’s where the dividends lie.