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JOAN JETT sets the Tulip bar
from: timesunion.com
by GREG HAYMES, photo by JOE ELARIO
ALBANY -- Organizers of next year's 60th annual Tulip Festival have a real problem on their hands. How do you top the fabulous celebration that took place in Washington Park on Saturday?
The tulips were in full bloom.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous.
And the music was a perfect cross-generational blend that seemed to appeal to everybody in attendance. And it certainly did seem as though everyone was in attendance.
Headliner JOAN JETT hasn't had a hit since 1990 -- before many in Saturday's huge, record-breaking crowd were even born -- but she certainly still knows how to rock. There's nothing very tricky about what she does -- she just straps on her guitar, slams out basic, three-chord rock 'n' roll anthems and everybody has a good time.
"I don't have to tell you what to do," she declared. "We're just gonna have some fun. So just relax -- a little singing, a little dancing."
Jett and her band (aided by semi-hidden keyboardist KENNY LAGUNA just off stage right) hit the stage with a blast of "Bad Reputation," then a dip back to her teenage days with the RUNAWAYS' "Cherry Bomb" and a tear through Bruce Springsteen's "Light of Day," before romping through Gary Glitter's fist-pumping anthem, "Do You Wanna Touch Me?"
It really didn't matter who wrote the songs -- the black-clad, gritty-voiced Jett made each of them her own, whether it was "Love Is All Around" (the theme song from the '70s' "Mary Tyler Moore Show"), a slinky sashay through The Replacements' "Androgynous," The Sweet's gender-bending "A.C.D.C." or her final encore of Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People."
Attention may have flagged just a bit among the thousands in the crowd when Jett showcased more than half of the songs from her 2006 album, "SINNER," but some of those -- especially the politically pointed "Riddles" -- were among her best performances.
Still, the party was back in high gear when she closed her 75-minute show with the primordial "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" (fueled by drummer Tommy Price), the perfect metal-and-pop fusion of "Crimson and Clover" and the razor sharp "I Hate Myself for Loving You."
Opening acts The Cinematics and Under the Influence of Giants also spanned the decades, musically speaking.
The Scottish Cinematics dipped back to the new wave sounds of the late '70s with such songs as "Maybe Someday," "Break" and "Asleep at the Wheel," drawing inspiration from Echo and The Bunnymen, early U2, the English Beat and even Flock of Seagulls.
The Los Angeles quartet Under the Influence of Giants were more drawn to the sounds of the disco-era BeeGees, thanks to singer Aaron Bruno's soaring falsetto, but their best song, "In the Clouds," resonated with the "Thriller"-like sounds of Michael Jackson.
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