By Ed Silverman
Is it really possible to bring back the ‘60s, man? Certainly, a handful of famous musicians and a nearly sold-out crowd at Morristown’s Community Theatre gave it a good shot on Aug. 10 as “Hippiefest” rolled into town for a two-hour extravaganza of trippy nostalgia, generational anthems and plain old, foot-stomping music.
For those unaware, Hippiefest is the latest incarnation of the package tour, a time-honored promotional tool that combines a large number of musical acts on one concert bill in town after town. Each act plays a few quick numbers and the next thing you know, the night is over.
Perhaps the best-known example of this phenomenon was Richard Nader’s Rock n Roll Revival, which regularly toured the country in the 1970s with a revolving line-up of certified gold headliners whose biggest hits blared from transistor radios a half century ago or more.
Now, though, the Baby Boomers are getting their turn at turning back the clock for an evening of hip-shaking sing-a-longs and decidedly sentimental yearnings. And to help them calibrate their memories, the producers of Hippiefest presented a handful of genuine blasts from the drug-infested past. Although we should note that there was not a whiff of marijuana in the house, despite the high concentration of tie-dyed T-shirts and disheveled attendees.
The night opened with Felix Cavaliere, the singer and chief songwriter for The Young Rascals, which later changed their name to The Rascals. Despite the vagaries of time, Felix still possesses the same robust and tuneful voice that made him a favorite on the charts all those years ago.
And he didn’t disappoint, opening with Lonely Too Long and running through Groovin’, People Got To Be Free and Good Lovin’, all of which had the crowd swooning and singing. And the audience didn’t seem to mind that he used his part of his allotted time to intersperse these choice selections with bits and pieces of hits that were had by others – Wilson Pickett’s In The Midnight Hour and The Temptations’ My Girl, for instance – rather than playing still more of the songs that made him famous.
This blue-eyed soul then gave way to blistering guitar pyrotechnics from Rick Derringer, whose first brush with popularity came in 1965 as a member of The McCoys, which had a huge hit in Hang On, Sloopy.
Of course, this memorable radio staple was featured during his set, although Derringer opened instead with an apt choice, Still Alive and Well, one of two famous numbers he wrote for Johnny Winter when he played guitar for the Texas troubadour during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Rick, who maintained a youthful presence as he bopped around the stage and raced across the frets on his guitar, segued briefly into an homage to US troops and played The Star Spangled Banner. It was a deft gesture that simultaneously combined a nod to the past – Jimi Hendrix famously did the same thing at Woodstock in 1969 – with a reference to the here and now that drew patriotic cheers. He then raced through another number before closing with his signature song, Rock and Roll, Hoochie Coo.
Up next was Gary Wright, a Creskill, NJ, native who moved to London in the late ‘60s and formed a progressive rock band called Spooky Tooth, which never had any real hits, but generated sufficient attention in the UK that Wright wound up playing piano on sessions for George Harrison, becoming close friends for many years, and Ringo Starr.
After grinding out a couple of his early tracks, which appeared largely unfamiliar to the vast majority of the audience, Gary smartly shifted gears and played the solo numbers for which he is remembered, Dream Weaver and Love Is Alive. Although these synthesized-driven chestnuts provided a decidedly different feel than the organic grooves of the halcyon days of hippiedom, they were clearly favorites of many in the crowd, which happily gave Gary the same affectionate standing ovation that the others received.
LISTEN TO MG PODCAST WITH GARY WRIGHT
Then came Mark Farner, the pony-tailed front man for Grand Funk Railroad, who strutted around the stage nearly non-stop as if he were still playing the infamous Shea Stadium concert in 1971, when the band sold out the seats faster than The Beatles had done six years earlier.
Although his hair is gray, Mark possesses the same strong voice, charismatic presence and youthful energy that brought him to fame. And he didn’t disappoint, as he churned out a pair of the band’s earliest tracks before launching into faithful renditions of The Locomotion, which was originally a Number One hit in 1962 for Little Eva; Some Kind of Wonderful, during which he stomped and strutted like a horny teenager, and his 1975 chart topper, Bad Time.
He then closed with a rousing version of Closer To Home/ I’m Your Captain, which brought whoops from the crowd. And in what seemed like an appropriate gesture, given how times really have changed, he left the stage saying, “G-d bless what is left of America!”
Closing the evening was Dave Mason, who was an original member of Traffic with Steve Winwood and has played with a laundry list of stars, from Eric Clapton and George Harrison to Cass Elliot and Jimi Hendrix, among many, many others. And he had a healthy solo career during the ‘70s, when he charted several songs that became radio fixtures, two of which were crowd pleasers this night, Let It Go, Let It Flow, and We Just Disagree.
And he hit a high note with versions of two Traffic’s best-loved tunes, Dear Mr. Fantasy and the anthemic Feelin’ Alright, the show finale for which Farner and Derringer joined him on stage. By then, former and wannabee hippies were dancing in the aisles and obviously feeling very alright. Maybe you can never go home, but for a brief while, the ‘60s vibe was alive.
Ed Silverman, a former reporter at The Star-Ledger, now runs a web site called Pharmalot, and has previously written about music for Living Blues, Jazziz and Dirty Linen.
