With your sleepy eyes
Could you ever love a man like me"
This was the highlight of the day. Stevie Nicks started talking about needing someone to sing "Leather and Lace" with her, and then said her vocal coach Steve Real was in attendance.
"I need you to love me
I need you today
Give me to your leather
Take from me my lace"
And now it's Don Henley's turn. You remember the original from the second side of "Bella Donna," released just four days before MTV launched, right?
Well, many in attendance came of age long after MTV stopped showing videos.
And this is a NorCal crowd, which is different from a SoCal crowd. In SoCal image is everything, how you look is most important. So everybody does their best to diet down and look good. But in the rest of the world it is not this way. In the rest of the world the people are normal, and what's on the inside counts more than the exterior. Like in Northern California.
And the east coast. But California is a different mentality. California is about freedom. You're three hours behind New York, everybody's up and at 'em before you've even had your coffee. So you let go and focus on your surroundings as opposed to the hustle and bustle of America.
Sure, Silicon Valley is in California. But that was founded by nerds. The nerd uniform is t-shirts and jeans. It's about undermining society as opposed to accepting it. Which California has done from time immemorial. Whether it be the movies or the San Francisco Sound of the late sixties, with the Airplane, the Dead and so many more. You can feel it in the air.
Actually, I saw an Instagram Reel wherein the San Diego resident went to South Carolina for work and was asked by a college graduate about the $25 hamburgers, and how she coped with all the trans kids on her son's baseball team. Live outside the Golden State and you're led to believe it's a hellhole. But it's not, and that's our little secret.
So Bottlerock is held in Napa, the epicenter of California wine country. But I don't drink. Well, I used to drink, but that's a long story. Which is all to say I'm not Napa-fluent. But I got on the JSX flight in Burbank and landed in Concord and it was like getting a vibe transplant. Southern California is mountains and desert, it's brown. But up here there are rolling hills of gold, which is I guess where they got the state's moniker from. It's a different feel. Hell, we've got everything in California, from the mountains to the lakes and... Sure, we might have a lot of regulation, but wouldn't you rather be safe than rich? And traffic sucks, but it sucks in your town now too. While everybody was banking their profits infrastructure has lain dormant. And you can get an abortion here too. Hate all you want, but not only is there no place I'd rather live, if MAGA wins, I'm safe, how about you?
Whew! That was a rant. But it's all to say Bottlerock ain't Coachella, a fest for young Angelenos to show their wares, and it's not the Governors Ball, where you might get rained out. However, it ain't hot here. Memorial Day weekend usually is not. In SoCal the hottest months are August and September. It dips down into the fifties before the last act leaves the stage. But they've got lockers for the extra clothing you bring for warmth. You see Bottlerock is uber-CIVILIZED!
Your conception of a festival? Wherein people push and shove and you're worn out at the end of the day, that ain't Bottlerock. You won't leave hating humanity. There's room to move around. Although I did get into a scrum trying to go from the Culinary Stage to VIP. I thought this was a harbinger of things to come. Because it was now late in the afternoon, maybe it just took this long for people to arrive. But no, it turned out that everybody needed to get a peek at Cameron Diaz. Musicians may have more gravitas, but the hoi polloi rarely get to see a movie star up close and personal. Well, kinda close anyway, you could see her on the big screen.
And the Culinary Stage is one of the best features of Bottlerock. I watched chef Aaron May cook Beef Wellington with Patrick Hallahan of My Morning Jacket while the USC Marching Band came out and played their signature song, the Fleetwood Mac hit, "Tusk."
And although Bottlerock is all about VIP, unlike with many festivals if you're not, if you don't want to pony up extra, you don't feel left out. But you'd better bring cash...er, load up your wristband...because the food offerings are delectable. Nearly as exciting as the music.
As for the music, I got there early, I wanted to see 17 year old guitar phenom Grace Powers. There weren't many in attendance before one, but if you were there you could have closed your eyes and thought it was the late sixties. Yes, the blues rock/extended solos of yore. Making me think how it's no longer about recordings, it's how good you are on the road, that's where you prove your mettle. You tour and tour and hopefully build a fan base. Whereas the hit parade is a different game, you might fly up the Spotify chart but when it comes to selling tickets...few may want to buy.
I then walked over to see this guy Boywithuke on the Verizon stage, the second biggest. The music coming through the speakers was really good, but there was only one guy on stage. And he was wearing a mask a la Deadmau5 and Marshmello. And that's when I decided to Shazam the tunes. And they came right up. And this doesn't happen if the music is live.
And there were deejays and rappers, which is all to say every nook and cranny of music was covered. Then again, this was the undercard. You need stars to draw the customers in.
One was Bebe Rexha. Who came out with two backup dancers and delivered until...I realized a lot of her show was on hard drive. Didn't seem to bug the audience, but can't say I was satisfied, I moved on to see Miike Snow.
Or maybe it was All Time Low.
But my experience for both was the same. In that over time I got into it. I mean All Time Low is an act from the Warped Tour, two decades ago. And the lead singer kept referencing this. And my stomach turned when the other axeman started dropping f-bombs and... I had to laugh. You're pushing forty and still acting like an adolescent. But despite the dated vocals, even the new tunes resonated. Which I didn't expect.
Miike Snow I expected to like more from the beginning. But it took them a while to find their groove. Swedish electronic music blended with regular rock...it's a worldwide business these days.
Not everybody was memorable. Pete Yorn... Can I say that he was never quite good enough, not distinctive enough in songwriting or vocals to be beloved by many? I know people hate when I diss their favorites, but most of the time at festivals only a few acts are your favorites, otherwise you're grazing, and if someone doesn't resonate soon, you move on.
Speaking of which I'd have to say the musical highlight was St. Vincent, who I'd only seen once before, at the Hollywood Bowl as part of a multi-act show. I can't say I'm familiar with her material, but I stayed and listened to every note. I got it. As for the performance...she was slinking and posing and it worked, but all this is to say that's usually more of an indoor performance. St. Vincent has a seventies sensibility. And I'll admit I'm sick of reading about her, but I was more than pleasantly surprised by her performance.
You see hype doesn't matter at a festival. When you play indoors it's to fans only. Outdoors...you have to prove it. Most people are not there to see you, can you win them over? If so, you're on your way. But it's a long, hard road. There's magic, you can be adored by people, but you can also starve. And when you're not on stage you're traveling with the same people and not getting enough sleep and it becomes a grind very quickly.
Yes, there are two music businesses. Live and recordings. It used to be that everything trickled down from recordings, that's no longer true. Used to be we all knew the same hits, that too is untrue. But I did see women mouthing the lyrics to St. Vincent's songs.
So what you do at Bottlerock is circulate. And there are only 40,000 people, which sounds like a lot, but it isn't. And if you've got some kind of VIP credential, you circle back there as home base, for the elbow room, for the better bathrooms. And if you're lucky enough to have platinum...
I have a hard time with people waiting on me. I have a hard time with servants. And in the platinum lounge there are servers passing delicacies and I can see the economic disparity between them and the consumers.
Then again, we live in a capitalistic democracy. You get to choose how to spend your money. Not everybody who is living it up is truly rich, this may be their one extravagance, and your server could be a college student about to set the world on fire. But still... It's hard for me to feel special.
But in platinum there's endless delicacies. From shrimp to shu mai, which I found to be the highlight of the day.
And there's a cornucopia of snacks to take on your travels. Is it the trail mix that just caused one of my teeth to fall out? I don't know if I can afford getting old. I invested thousands less than a year ago saving that tooth, now I'm going to have to add that to the bill for an implant? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't upset, but I'm trying to not get depressed, it's just not worth it, this is the nature of life, good things happen and then bad. And then the reverse. But it's not always so easy to hold your head up, as Argent sang.
So the two big headliners last night were Megan Thee Stallion and Ms. Nicks. I really would have liked to have seen Megan, but given the choice I had to go for royalty.
That's right, they're minting almost no new royalty. Or should I say it used to be different. Or should I say everybody in attendance could sing "Rhiannon," the young as well as the old.
And I'm watching Stevie perform and I can't stop thinking about the days gone by. The sixties were a revolution, the seventies were a victory lap. But music ruled the world. Music does not rule the world these days. Furthermore, we don't have universal hits, despite what the industry and media want you to believe. If you were alive in '75, you knew "Rhiannon." And ultimately every lick of "Rumours" thereafter. We don't have that equivalent today. Period.
And Lindsey Buckingham may have squeezed himself out, but Fleetwood Mac is no more anyway. Because Stevie doesn't need the rest to sell tickets and Christine is gone. Actually, that was a moment of gravitas. The pictures of Christine on the big screen as Stevie sang. I felt the loss. The records remain, but the person is gone. It's done, finito. But when you saw the pictures from the seventies, of Christine in the plane, laughing, you remembered when rock truly was royalty, and it was all about living outside the system and having fun, making money all the while. The corporation was the enemy, you existed in your own plane (literally and figuratively). And there were no billionaires, you didn't need more money, you were as rich as anybody in America, whereas today's players are all chasing that corporate cash.
And it took a bit for Stevie's act to come together. Maybe it was the fact that she started while it was still light, which is anathema to rock and roll.
She shocked me by starting with "Rock and Roll," the Zeppelin track on the flip side of the single of "Black Dog" in the jukebox at Tony's Pizza in Middlebury, Vermont. Not only did Led Zeppelin never get any respect, they were kept at arm's length by the rest of the business. Nicks singing "Rock and Roll" showed how deeply Zeppelin truly penetrated, it's hard to believe three members of the group are still alive.
And speaking of dead, Nicks paid tribute to Tom Petty and you felt the loss. Now that he's gone Petty's shadow looms large, he made it seem simple, but no one else could do straight ahead rock in his era as well as he did. And unlike so many of the legends, Petty never sold out, he was a true believer.
But it was "Leather and Lace" that made me swoon.
You know, the moment when Don Henley comes in, and then the two duet. The initial hit was "Edge of Seventeen," which I never loved, yet it was phenomenal last night. But nothing could be as good as "Leather and Lace."
How do we set the scene. This was at the dawn of the eighties. The boomers had not yet sold out. They still had their old values, where what was inside mattered most, you wore your jeans each and every day. People were falling in love, they were pairing up.
"But I carry this feeling
When you walked into my house
That you wouldn't be walking out the door
Still I carry this feeling
When you walked into my house
That you won't be walking out the door"
Sure, Stevie Nicks is a great songwriter, but her voice is distinctive.
And so is Don Henley's. You know it immediately.
But Henley wasn't in attendance last night. This guy Steve Real was. Standing next to Stevie, waiting his turn. And when he stepped up to the mic with is pure voice, not expected from this beefy guy, the audience audibly swooned, as did I. I just got goosebumps writing that.
So it's the same as it ever was. I'm standing there, wondering if the good times are gone, wondering if everything is just a dash for cash, and then there's this pure musical moment that transcends the rest of life, that is life itself.
"Lovers forever, face to face
My city, your mountains
Stay with me, stay
I need you to love me
I need you today
Give to me your leather
Take from me my lace"
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