A jubilant celebration of the hard-to-categorize band’s career, from its pop-punk beginnings through its swift spread into a wide range of musical styles.
Author: Thomas K. Arnold
Thomas K. Arnold
Thomas K. Arnold is publisher and editorial director of Media Play News, a home entertainment trade publication. Before venturing into home video, he spent more than a decade writing about music. He was rock critic and columnist for the San Diego County Edition of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Magazine, and contributed reviews, features and interviews to Billboard, the Los Angeles Times, Goldmine, Relix and other music publications. In 1979 he founded Kicks: San Diego’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine, which he turned over to an associate two years later to engineer the comeback for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
Accompanied only by his own guitars and banjo, the founder of the Byrds performed songs going back more than 50 years, and still sounded fantastic.
Credit is due Dolenz and Nesmith for keeping alive the spirit, as well as the sound, of the Monkees. Their televised impishness continues to translate well.
The band’s sold-out concert was as much a joyous celebration of the life, and songs, of their former leader as it was a good old rock ’n’ roll show.
The band delivered an energetic two-hour set of blistering rock ’n’ roll, injected with an ample dose of weirdness. It was as though time had stood still.