The Animals stalk the classic comeback trail
By Devi M. Asmarani
JAKARTA (JP): It may be almost 30 years since a series of usurpers sent the stars of the 1960s packing, but their spirit continues to convert followers from succeeding generations.
Passe, perhaps, but spot the new batch of hippies strolling the streets of America, swathed in second-hand-store bell bottoms, tie dies and Birkenstock "Jesus" sandals.
They swear allegiance to the "dead", meaning both the recently dissolved Grateful Dead and the late but great Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.
Many snicker at the seeming naivete of these devotees of a period long left behind by those who actually lived it. But in a more intense and absurd sense, they represent much of our wistful craving for things from the past.
Current bands standing under the alternative music banner rake in money and gain fame by reviving the style of music of their predecessors. Kula Shaker, Oasis and the Counting Crows have, at one time or another, adopted the retro edge.
The public cannot seem to get enough of the oldies. The taste for their music, what some call classic rock, encourages producers to keep churning out "best hits" albums. The lucrative royalties keep the musicians in their finery long after their voices have weakened and pants moved up a belt size or two.
Call it vanity or a yearning for unfulfilled dreams, but many are still tempted to clamber back up the path to fame, even at the risk of being mocked as musical has-beens.
Even great musicians get the retiree blues. Or maybe the reasons are purely commercial -- reunion shows of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd were huge crowd pullers.
The Animals, whose popularity rivaled the Beatles and Rolling Stones in the mid-1960s, is one of the groups which succumbed to the comeback bug in 1993. Their music, a combination of gritty American bluesy folks and roaring energetic rock and roll, was always catchy enough to be hummed or sung along to.
The band made its way to the Classic Rock Cafe here last week, with audience curiosity piqued both by the music and an appearance in a nondescript club, squeezed between seedy bars in the less savory streets of Jakarta's Blok M.
The band started out in Newcastle, England, where the original members were from. Formerly called the Alan Price Combo, it initially consisted of vocalist Eric Burdon, keyboardist Alan Price, bassist Bryan "Chaz" Chandler (who later became the first manager of Jimmy Hendrix but is now deceased), lead guitarist Hilton Valentine and drummer John Steel.
In a mere three years, the band rocketed to fame both in the U.K. and U.S. Changes in several band members did not stop it from producing a series of best-selling singles, including Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, It's My life, and We Gotta Get Out of This Place.
They finally disbanded in the late 1960s, when Burdon moved to California and eventually formed a new group, War. But several reunion performances and albums over the years led Valentine and Steel to put together the new Animals four years ago. New members were Steve Dawson on guitar, Martin Bland on bass, Steve Hutchinson on keyboards and Robert Kane on vocals.
New music is not part of the equation. The band continues to perform their old numbers, many of which were made famous by Burdon's voice.
"Our music is Rhythm and Blues, and we will continue doing that, because that's what we do the best," Dawson told The Jakarta Post.
And that they do. Perhaps fans do not really want their bands to change. Living proof of this is that the Bee Gees never got the same enthusiasm from their later albums as during the disco era of the mid 1970s, failing to cast off the tired 1970s R&B disco track and the famed falsetto.
With little innovation but much energy and solidity to offer, the Animals gave perhaps one of the best performances a Jakarta cafe can offer.
Playing a set of their old hits like San Franciscan Nights, Don't Bring Me Down, and Bo Diddley, they managed to charm the thirty-something audience. Impressive for a band whose youngest member, Dawson, is 37, and Steel, at 56, is old enough to be the father of most of the audience. It helped that Classic Rock Cafe's crowd is more casual and enthusiastic than visitors to other trendy Jakarta cafes.
Kane upstaged the rest of band with his brilliant and audacious voice that comes from the tradition of good and clearly projected vocals, before mumbling became an overriding musical trend.
It was entertaining enough just to watch him interact with the audience, climbing and standing on tables, although one couldn't help worrying that he might fall off and injure his 42-year-old bones.
Ironically, this Jordie band is most famous for House of The Rising Sun, a modification of a traditional American black folk song. In 1964, the band sold over a million copies of the single in England and the U.S. Proof of its durability is that Kane's invitation for song requests was answered with thunderous shouts for this very number.
There was also the high-spirited blues number Bo Diddley, named after 1950s R&B artist who parlayed his success into rock in the following decade. It is a smart combination of spoken lyrics and catchy chorus, and a memorable number which is good dance music.
Overall, the show seemed a bit rushed. The band sped through 15 songs in a little over an hour, pausing briefly when Kane playfully bantered with the audience. The inescapable feeling was that the Animals had another more pressing agenda for the night.
Which they probably did. Their visit to Indonesia was part of a European, Asian and the U.S. tour promoting a new album, yet another greatest hits compilation, to be released next month.
The show ended, as expected, with a successful encore and wild applause. Then an imposing figure in black, the very same man who had announced the arrival of "the legendary band the Animals" in his most MC-ish tones, bounded back on stage shouted, "Now was that classic rock or what?"
Classic, all right. But an even more telling indication that the Animals is perhaps living in the time warp of the 1960s was the "classic" response of one of the band members when I approached him for an interview.
"Why don't you girls come up to the dressing room?" he said to me and the enraptured young woman he was conversing with. "We have some Vodka." The line may have worked with gullible groupies way back when, but it now simply cries out, and received, a flat rejection.