The Summerland Guitar Tour 2013 promised a new spin on the old caravan tours of the '50s and '60s, when a busload of hot talent would barnstorm the nation playing several shows a day in the major markets.
Routine package tours with Tab Hunter, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, Sal Mineo and that bunch from Motown could be experienced for less then two dollars a ticket. That the Motown legend was built on such grueling tours could not have been lost on Art Alexakis, front man of hard rockers Everclear and mastermind behind this venture. In fact, you can't deny that the Summerland Guitar Tour is a damn good idea, especially for, um, summer.
Vinnie Dombroski of Sponge brought the best outfit (an oversized black leather sombrero with sparkles, a matching jacket and oversized aviator glasses that gave his skinny frame the majesty of Norma Desmond with every gesture) while his band brought the smoothest grooves of the night. Sponge had a certain laid-back dirty funkiness that may have been too soft for what this crowd was expecting but that certainly did not mean that they didn't bring it. Sponge was actually quite brilliant but there was something off about the set.
That "something" was a muddy sound mix that swallowed the vocals and guitars while giving the percussion a bottomless echo. That mix did nobody onstage or in the audience any favors and forced the artists to overcome it while trying to thrill the living shit out of an excited audience. Everyone on stage had there hearts and souls invested, so the game was on.
Filter not only topped the battle but won the war. It was almost comical that vocalist Richard Patrick looked like Buddy Holly in a foul temper, that actor/bassist Phil Buckman looked as if he had escaped from the pages of Blue Boy Magazine and that guitarist Jonathon Radtke looked like a junior punked out elf from The Hobbit. However odd they looked together, Filter was shrewd enough to turn the murky mix to their advantage. "(Can't You) Trip Like I Do" and "What Do You Say?," hard rockers both, sank in that sonic toilet but Filter's unlikely cover of The Turtles' 1966 pop hit "Happy Together" shifted the night considerably. Slow, muddy and moody, this "Happy Together" was a trippy stew of dysfunction, smoke and insanity. "Take A Picture" was even more haunting and disturbing, with its clunky sound and wrap-around distortion. Filter may have looked like an anachronism but they sounded like mad genius.
Live and, in particular, vocalist Chris Shinn went in the opposite direction; being that this was the act's first tour in three years with a new vocalist, it obviously had something to prove. "White Discussion" was full of fire but the huge hit "All Over You" was so dramatic that it literally peeled the paint off the walls. Shinn was both articulate and emotionally dramatic forcing the mix to bend to his will while literally drugging every heart in the room. As if that weren't enough, the closer "Lightening Crashes," technically a power ballad, was altered into an epic of high and heavy drama. The only thing wrong with Live's set was its length—a paltry 35 minutes. (Sponge and Filter got just 25 minutes, which was just as much of a rub.)
This all nearly robbed Alexakis and Everclear of the impact they deserved. Alexakis' vocals were literally swallowed in that mix, making the nakedly sincere "I Will Buy you a New Life" inert. Despite two all-star jam sessions where the entire line-up cut loose onstage, the night's last grand gesture came with a stinging and bitchy "Heroin Girl." Lacerating, blunt, cruel and downright nasty, "Heroin Girl" was all piss and bile, with Alexakis spraying spit in all directions with flames literally flying from his fingers. Shitty sound mix or not, I wouldn't have missed this show for the world.
After seeing this edition of the tour I regretted not seeing the 2012 version or this year's bunch in lengthier sets. Reportedly, the previous edition did not do well at the box office—this time around the roomy and pristine Venue was half-full. So here's hoping that there will be a Summerland 2014 and that it will play in front of an overflow audience with a far better sound mix. The bands and audiences deserve that much.
