[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. (more…)
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