Imagine my surprise when, Wednesday night, I received a call from my good friend Brandon, informing me that not only was Jefferson Starship playing a show in Chicago, but that I would be able to attend...GRATIS! My mind was blown, and not ordinary, "wind roaring at high speeds" blown, but "a mad scientist invented a tornado gun that shoots tidal shifting gusts of air that is filled with wailing saxophones" blown. That is not hyperbole. I was so excited that I literally wanted a cyclone of sax-rocking breeze to knock my head off.
The night began at Club 162, the former ? Tavern, which was the former Benchwarmers Bar, which was the former Harry Caray's Wrigleyville, which was probably formerly the Alan Parsons Project at some point. Brandon and I had a superior plate of steak nachos and Blue Moon, and chatted with THE Alex Peters, barkeep extraordinaire. We sang "King of Wishful Thinking," watched the amazing new Captain America trailer and discussed the possibility of Procol Harum arriving at the Mayne Event to open for Jefferson Starship.
It was a cruel way to start an evening.
We cabbed it to the venue, The Mayne Event, a perfectly lovely performance space on the North side of Chicago. We were greeted by the lovely Marie, who showed us to our own, personal CORDONED OFF SEATS! How could this not be great? We were about to witness rock royalty celebrate their 40th anniversary of rocking royally. More Blue Moons and more Procol Harum jokes burst forth like so many saxophones caught in a hurricane. We could not have been more PSYCHed if we were the writers and creators of "Rizzoli and Isles."
Thought I was gonna write "Psych," didn't you? Well that's lazy writing, and yet, it still would have been better than the drivel we were exposed to by Jefferson Fucking Starship: Dream Shatterers!
Think of three songs you would want to hear Jefferson Starship play. "Jane?" You got it! Sung excellently by Dave Frieberg, who looked like a Hobbit with a tamborine. "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now?" Nope. "Sara?" Not at all. "We Built This City?" ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOT! How can Jefferson Starship show up at a venue, play a career spanning hits package, and NOT PLAY "WE BUILT THIS CITY!?" That's like Styx showing up and NOT playing "Come Sail Away." Or Asia showing up and NOT playing "Heat Of The Moment." Or that one past-it's-prime band showing up and NOT playing "THE SONG THEY ARE KNOWN FOR MOST!" No, instead we were treated to a bunch of geriatric dinosaurs playing deep cuts and b-sides from albums that were ENTIRELY DEEP CUTS AND B-SIDES because nobody has ever HEARD OF THEM! Did you know Jefferson Starship released an album in 2008 entitled Jefferson's Tree of Liberty? Of course you didn't, because you want to hear "We Built This City," not some generic corporate rock song that the original Jefferson Airplane would have drank under the table and murdered with tainted LSD back in 1968.
I had to get that out. Sorry.
Now, before I continue, allow me to put words in your mouth. You're saying, "Well, they were billed as 'Jefferson Starship,' so they only played songs under the 'Jefferson Starship' name. 'We Built This City' was just a 'Starship' song." And that would be a good assumption to make...if they hadn't played "White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love" which were JEFFERSON AIRPLANE songs, released long before the eternally shrugging Paul Kantner ruined a psychedelic musical legacy by creating the band that would one day disappoint me so much that I pined for Level 42 to show up and sing "Something About You."
Ask the band, and you might hear that there were sound issues. Well, ask the people who work at the venue, and you'll find out that the band didn't show up for sound check until 10 minutes before the show, and then refused to walk through the audience to get to the stage. Throwing rock star tantrums might have been acceptable when you were still rock stars, but now you're just ancient reanimated fossils lumbering through life, playing the saddest, most lifeless versions of these "songs" that a fetid, rotting corpse could manage. And PS to Mr. Kantner: maybe your mic keeps feeding back because your amp is on too high because you didn't bother to come to SOUND CHECK! I saw the sound set up at this place, and it was amazing. If it were socially acceptable to make love to a mixing board, I'd pick the one at the Mayne Event. And yes, I'd clear it with the wife first, of course.
And no "WE BUILT THIS CITY!" I could have overlooked every egregious error of the night if you had just played that one song. I could have overlooked the fact that you played the shortest, most boring version of "White Rabbit" ever played. I could have overlooked your singer's horrifying, karaoke-on-Special K preening throughout the night. I could have even overlooked the fact that the only people having any fun onstage were the faceless drummer and Dave "Bilbo" Frieberg. But no, you chose to play a bunch of crap that no one had ever heard of and tried to pass it off as "hits."
Well congrats, Jefferson Starship. The best part of my night involving your music was going to Brandon's bar Brendan's and playing "Find Your Way Back" on the juke. You could have made my Guilty Pleasure Top Ten of all time, but you choice to shit on your audience, both figuratively (by not playing "We Built This City") and literally (by playing everything you played that wasn't called "Jane.") Well played, Dream Shatterers. Well played.
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