I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: December 8, 2016] Jefferson Starship

I had no interest in seeing Jefferson Starship, but they were opening for Blue Oyster Cult and, heck I love White Rabbit, so why not check them out.

This incarnation of Jefferson Starship is pretty hilarious because the only person in the band who was in the band when they were Jefferson Starship is guitarist David Freiberg (vocals, guitar) (almost–the drummer has a tenure there too, see below).  It’s particularly amusing because Freiberg was in Jefferson Airplane for their final tour, and then they broke up.  When Jefferson Starship began a couple years later, he was a part of the band until they went on hiatus in 1985.  But when Paul Kantner reunited the band in 1993, Freiberg wasn’t included (apparently because Freiberg didn’t leave immediately when Starship formed, like Kantner did).  They made up in 2006 and Freiberg and Kantner had been touring as Jefferson Starship.  Kantner died earlier this year, so Freiberg is the only person connected with the original band left.

Interestingly, he left when Jefferson Starship became Starship, (but not as quickly as Kantner) because he didn’t like the direction the band was going (and Grace Slick considered him “dead weight”).  So he didn’t do “We Built This City.”  However, Donny Baldwin, the drummer at our show played with Jefferson Starship for two years (when Freiberg was there, too) in the 1980s and moved on to Starship and DID play on “We Built This City.”  When they reunited, they had a different drummer, but Baldwin came back in 2008.  So, when they play “We Built This City,” and they do, the drummer is the only one who was responsible for it in the first place.  Crazy.

Incidentally, Freiberg more or less left because of “We Built This City.”  According to Wikipedia: He became frustrated with the sessions because all the keyboard work in the studio was being done by Peter Wolf (lead singer of the J. Giels Band who had played on the sessions for Nuclear Furniture and briefly joined the band on the road for the follow-up tour) and keyboards were the instrument Freiberg was supposed to be playing.  He left the band and the album (with “We Built This City” which was written by written by Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, and Peter Wolf) was finished with the five remaining members.

How’s that for a convoluted history.

Also, Grace Slick retired from music a pretty long time ago.  When the band reunited they had a singer, Diana Mangano, but, in 2008 she was replaced by Cathy Richardson.  Richardson played Janis Joplin on Broadway and while I did think she sounded a bit more Joplin than Slick, she really played the part well.

There’s no question that Jefferson Airplane/Starship was an iconic band (well, Airplane, especially).  So I figured I’d know all of the songs they played and have an enjoyable classic rock time.  But I was surprised at how few songs I knew from the show.  In fact, they opened with a song that I didn’t know at all. “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” is from Surrealistic Pillow, but I’d never heard it before.  It was fine, but definitely lacked the 1960’s sound that would have made it a bit more fun to hear.

Then they played “Find Your Way Back.”  Now this song I remembered.  In fact, I loved this song when it came out (but probably haven’t even thought of it for 25 years).  It made me want to get the album Modern Times, but I never did.  Interestingly, another song from that album was played later.  I’d never heard, or even heard of, “Stairway to Cleveland” (I actually thought she was joking when she said that was the name of the song), but it was a really fun song.  The band was really into it and it sounded great.

They played “Today” also from Pillow, which I also didn’t know.  It was a mellow song, and I was a little sleepy during it.  Then they played “Miracles” with Freiberg and Richardson singing a nice duet.  This was apparently a big hit comes from Jefferson Starship’s evidently best selling album Red Octopus.  I’ve never even heard of this album, much less the song.  But the duet was good and they sand well with each other.

They brought me back with a great version of “White Rabbit.”  Richardson did a wonderful job with one of my favorite songs, and she was really into it, even getting down on her knees for one part.  The fact that they followed it with “We Built This City” was something of an insult.  Although she did introduce the song by saying “We’re now going to play the worst song in the world.”  She then commented, “it’s not really the worst song, we have worse ones.”  And, as much as I dislike the song, it was far more palatable live.

Then they played “Cleveland,” with the rather surprising part where the song breaks and they shout, “Fuck you, we do what we want!”  It was pretty surprising coming from this band.  The song was fun and rocking and I enjoyed that everyone sang the vocals together.  She made it current by shouting “What you gonna do about the GOP, DNC, Bernie Sanders etc.”  (But they stayed apolitical, which was probably wise).

My favorite moment of their set came when they played “Jane.”  I always forget about this song and I certainly forget that Jefferson Starship sang it.  But the most impressive part was Freiberg.  All along he was singing fine–his leads were tuneful and right on.  But I never expected him to belt out “Jane” near perfectly.  That song has some really high-pitched, powerful vocals, and he did an amazing job.

They ended with “Somebody to Love” which was great.  And then they had enough time for one more song so they did “Volunteers” (the “got to revolution” song).  The audience was pretty pleased with that one and all sang along.

The rest of the band, by the way, included Chris Smith (keyboards–been with them since 1999) and Jude Gold (lead guitar).  Since I love this kind of stuff, check out who Gold has played with: He has performed with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, 2 Live Crew, David Grisman and The String Cheese Incident. He has also toured with JGB (formerly known as the Jerry Garcia Band, featuring original members Melvin Seals, Donny Baldwin, Gloria Jones, and Jackie LaBranch) and Kristin Chenoweth.

To summarize, this guy played guitar with 2 Live Crew and the Jerry Garcia Band.  Not many people can say that (or would want to, I suppose).  He was a bouncing, showoffy kind of guitarist who seemed rather at odds with the rest of the old fogeys in the band, but he’s been with them for four years, and he can do their solos perfectly, so I guess it works.

When the intermission was over I heard the lady behind me say that she waited up by the merch table and got pictures of all of them, and that they were all really nice.  So that’s nice to hear.  I was fairly surprised that Jefferson Starship had three different T-shirts available (Blue Öyster Cult had only one)..

I’m intrigued that I may have found more enjoyment doing the “research” for this post than I did from the show.  But that’s unfair.  “White Rabbit” and the last four songs were pretty great.

• 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds (Jefferson Airplane cover)
• Find Your Way Back
• Today (Jefferson Airplane cover)
• Miracles
• White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane cover
• We Built This City (Starship cover)
• Stairway to Cleveland
• Jane
• Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane cover)
• Volunteers (Jefferson Airplane cover)