|
All news is attributed to the source from which it was received so that readers may judge the validity of the statements for themselves.
Have Joan Jett news to report? Email us at jettfc@aol.com, and please include the source of the information so it can be validated.
Marin still loves Jett's rock 'n' roll
from: marinij.com
by Paul Liberatore
JOAN JETT played before a record-breaking crowd at the Marin County Fair
The line to get into the Marin County Fair to see JOAN JETT on Monday night stretched so far I couldn't see the end of it. With a handful of other people, I was standing backstage with the iconic female rocker, who was more interested in watching the ducks paddling around on the Civic Center Lagoon than in the record crowd that was streaming onto the fairgrounds for her show.
In the midst of a surprising comeback with "SINNER," her first album of new songs in 12 years, the 47-year-old hard-rock heroine broke off from the high-profile Warped Tour to appear in Marin for this one show at the fairgrounds.
Evidently, judging from her fascination with the ducks, she and her four-piece band don't get to see a lot of wildlife on the Warped Tour, unless you count the flocks of young fans who turn out in full punk plumage to pay homage to one of their idols.
As Jett and her band, the BLACKHEARTS, did a meet and greet with a handful of insiders before the show, a heavyset young woman wearing a T-shirt from a tattoo parlor confided to me, "JOAN JETT was seminal to my development as a dyke, and as a rocker."
Jett, who has the tiny body of a young boy, wore her dyed black hair spiky and short. She had on low-cut black leather pants, a black vinyl vest and heavy foundation makeup. Her eyes were as kohl lined as a Middle Eastern princess. When she graciously posed for snapshots with fans, her smile was so sweet that it clashed noticeably with her street-tough image.
"Riddles," the opening song on her new album, ends with some Orwellian doublespeak from Donald Rumsfeld followed by George W. Bush's much-ridiculed screw-up of the saying that begins, "Fool me once ..." I asked her if she includes that track when she performs live.
"Oh, it'll be in there," she assured me, later elaborating that "it's a commentary on how our government speaks to us, or rather speaks around us."
But Jett, who seems almost shy, isn't much of a talker. That slack gets taken up by KENNY LAGUNA, her longtime manager, musical collaborator and friend. Laguna co-wrote "Riddles," along with Jett and former Non-Blond Linda Perry.
"It's a challenge writing an anti-war song that isn't preachy," he said in a Manhattan/Long Island accent. "Even the great anti-war songs are stupid."
He reminded me that Jett has done numerous overseas tours in the Balkans and the Middle East to entertain the troops, but keeps it quiet because she doesn't want her support of the troops to be interpreted as support of the Iraq War.
"She says, 'I don't want anyone questioning my motives, including me,'" Laguna said.
A friendly middle-aged man with thinning hair died blond, Laguna has been with Jett since she left the 1970s all-female hard rock band the RUNAWAYS and broke through as a solo singer /guitarist with "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," a No. 1 hit single in 1982. Since then, her career has been up and down. With the new CD on her own BLACKHEARTS label, it's now very much on the upside.
Minutes before show time, the band's road manager rounded up his troops, saying, "It's nice hanging out with the ducks, but now we've got to go to work."
On stage, Jett opened with the RUNAWAYS' one and only hit, "Cherry Bomb," then bounced and strutted through a high-energy set that was something of a career retrospective. I couldn't suppress a smile when she sang pop/punk renditions of Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover" and "Love Is All Around," the theme to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
She introduced several songs from the new album, which are so tuneful and well-crafted that they sound instantly familiar. I particularly like "Androgynous," a loping anthem of sexual freedom written by former Replacement Paul Westerberg.
For the entire show, the crowd was on its feet, filling the tent on the lagoon island and spreading out onto the grass and across the footbridge onto the fairgrounds. It was even bigger than last year's turnout for hometown heroes Huey Lewis and the News, the previous record holder.
There was just one dicey moment, when an overly exuberant fan, a rather large young woman with short hair and tattoos, climbed onto the stage and headed for Jett. Laguna, playing keyboards on the far side of the stage, was on her in an instant, hustling her off the stage and returning to his post as if nothing had happened. I couldn't help but be impressed not only by his devotion to Jett's career, but also to her safety.
After an encore, Jett stood by herself on the grass behind the stage, pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and climbed aboard a waiting golf cart that whisked her away to her waiting bus. She'd left the Warped Tour the day before in Milwaukee, and would drive all night to rejoin the tour in Phoenix the next day.
"It's a challenge to stay awake," Laguna said as we walked onto the fairgrounds after the concert, admiring a gorgeous Marin sunset. "But she just loves to perform. That's why she does this. Up or down, she never changes. She's always the same."
|
| |
This Week:
No shows scheduled this week.
Click on the LIVE DATES link for upcoming shows |
Item Of The Month:
|
