[…Continued from last post]

EDDIE MUNOZ [OF THE PLIMSOULS]

What a difference a few months makes. In the case of Eddie Muñoz, the lead guitarist of The Plimsouls, the difference between billing as “The The Plimsouls” and what happened today: Eddie Muñoz [of Plimsouls]. It was a case of the usual behind-the-scenes legal jockeying that’s been known to happen in this business called show. But what matters to the crowd was that at 5:45 sharp, Eddie and band arrived on stage and played their set. I have to say that I’ve only ever heard the single Plimsouls song, the Power Pop classic, “A Million Miles Away” back in the day and that was it. Today they played four times as much Plimsouls material; evenly split from the band’s first two albums, and it was all great, catchy Power Pop driven significantly by Muñoz’s Rickenbacker guitar. The brevity of the set insured that they left us wanting more, and it was a good start to the day’s musical smorgasbord.

Eddie Muñoz Set:

1. Zero Hour
2. Oldest Story in the World
3. Now
4. A Million Miles Away

ANNABELLA LWIN [BOW WOW WOW]

There were two bands that I was most enthusiastic about seeing this day, and the first of them were up next, after a reasonable short between-set break [that couldn’t have been more than 12-15 minutes]. The years have seen me amass a big enough Bow Wow Wow collection so that when the 2018 Cherry Red clamshell box was released, I thought the better of obtaining one; happy with what I already had.

Annabella Lwin threw us a curve ball by opening their set with one of my very favorite songs from their last album, the intense “Love, Peace + Harmony!” This was the last song of the last album and it featured the band’s use of Balinese Monkey Chant rhythm vocals mixed with savage Morricone guitar and popping bass; the quintessential Bow Wow Wow sound which was theirs only. As the song was instrumental except for the chanted title as the chorus, I was surprised that they left the chorus off of the song until then end, when Annabella finally took to the stage. I had begun to worry that she might be AWOL!

Next they threw me in the deep end of my fandom by performing my all time favorite Bow Wow Wow tune: “W.O.R.K. [No Nah No! My Daddy Don’t]!” I was so pleased that they pulled this gem out of their bag of hits when it could have been a “Baby Oh No” instead. This amazing song was always the strongest link to their origins as Malcolm McLaren’s Situationalist fever dreams. That they would deign to play it warmed the cockles of my heart.

After that came the sunnier pop of their hits “Do You Wanna Hold Me” and “I Want Candy.” Annabella was the only woman on the stage today and she made use of her personable charm to connect strongly with the audience. I loved her telling about meeting Richard Gotterher’s daughter on an earlier stop of the tour; he being the recently deceased writer of “I Want Candy” as well as producer of many a hit from Bubblegum to New Wave. She sang these songs powerfully and my only regret was that their set was a scanty four songs. I’d seen that earlier performances were a more generous half dozen. So I was definitely left wanting more from her! Hopefully, there will be a tour one day that I can catch in a club.

Annabella Lwin Set:

1. Love, Peace and Harmony
2. W.O.R.K. (No Nah No! No! My Daddy Don’t)
3. Do You Wanna Hold Me?
4. I Want Candy

THE TUBES

I had wondered how much if any of The Tubes legendary theatrics would be making the leap to the stage this day. It was as hot as a beast and we were all melting in the sun as The Tubes ambled onstage in comfort clothing. Well, that answered my question. In the 100+ degree heat when holding our hands up and applauding thus far, every clap dislodged atomized sweat in a fine mist from my hands and arms that was dramatically backlit by the unforgiving sun! We’ve never encountered that before, Captain. I had a smattering of background on The Tubes, and once owned “The Completion Backward Principle” album that saw them moving away from rock satire towards the real thing. I bought the Tubes laserdisc in the 90s but have yet to spin it! A common failing of mine. I was imagining that I would be more or less conversant with their set. As we’ll see, reality fell short of my ideals.

They kicked off their set with a song that I had never heard, and I could barely hear Fee Waybill in the mix. Something was not right and when I managed to catch an aural glimpse of Waybill, it was not good. Either he was way past the point of singing professionally [or even in the shower] or the front of house mixer needed to be severely punished! What I was barely hearing sounded like a voice that was wildly off pitch and dropping in and out of the mix. My friend The RAHB and I were feeling great empathy for Waybill at this point. And that’s a terrible feeling at a big show like this. The next song was their biggest hit, “She’s A Beauty.” Never a favorite, but at least when I saw the video 500 times on MTV, Waybill was sounding infinitely better than this.

They next pulled a deep cut off of “Completion Backward Principle” that rang no bells what so ever [“A Matter Of Pride”] before landing on the shoulda-been-single and probably the best song on that record, “Sushi Girl.” But I was still amazed at how badly Waybill sounded. The rest of the band got better in the mix by the third song or so, but Fee was still sounding… well, feeble. Another cut so deep it had no familiarity [“Tip Of My Tongue”] followed before they closed with the sturdy “Talk To Ya Later.” Unfortunately, Fee’s performance didn’t sound sturdy… at all.

Afterward, my friend Todd Lewis, who was a musician cited severe mix problems while The RAHB and I were fearing Waybill was simply far past the point of public performance by this point. I’d like to give Fee the benefit of the doubt as it was a heart wrenchingly poor sounding performance that we heard. And the kick in the teeth was that they didn’t perform “White Punks On Dope,” but without the wretched excess of Fee in his “Quay Lewd” getup and persona, maybe it was a foregone conclusion that it wouldn’t happen in this festival context. The bitter pill was that this terrible sounding performance was six songs deep.

The Tubes Set:

1. TV Is King
2. She’s a Beauty
3. A Matter Of Pride
4. Sushi Girl
5. Tip Of My Tongue
6. Talk To Ya Later

Next: …Ivan To The Rescue!