The Tubes’ Blistering Live Set: 2019 Review

They can still pull it off.

More than 40 years after they stormed onto the music scene with “White Punks on Dope,” The Tubes delivered an energetic two-hour set of blistering rock ’n’ roll, injected with an ample dose of weirdness, that truly made it seem as though time had stood still.

A band like the Tubes, with such an outrageous and unique musical signature, could easily have become a parody of itself (are you listening, Kiss?), particularly with a stage show centered around the sexual flamboyance of front man and lead singer Fee Waybill, 68 at the time of this performance.

But not these guys, most of whom have been with the band since its beginnings in San Francisco (by way of Phoenix) back in the mid-1970s. Something of a bridge between glam-rock and the emerging punk bands, the Tubes defied categorization but whittled out their own niche with a dazzling debut album, produced by Al Kooper, that also featured such quirky classics as “Mondo Bondage” and the sardonic putdown of consumerism, “What Do You Want from Life.”

Their stage show, too, was to standard 1970s rock concerts what Howard Stern was to radio—an extravagant, theatrical circus of outlandishness—with lots of bare skin, dancing girls and a giant dildo, choreographed by none other than Kenny Ortega, who later found fame with Michael Jackson and the movie Dirty Dancing.

Nearly half a century later, the stage show has been toned down (no more girls, no more dildo) and guitarist-songwriter Bill Spooner, the band’s creative architect, is long gone.

But other than that, it all still works, as evidenced by this February 1, 2019 concert: the music, the stage shenanigans, Waybill’s magical, mystical rapport with the audience, many of whom are repeat customers (the Tubes play San Juan Capistrano’s Coach House pretty much every year). That’s because from the opening strains of “Talk to Ya Later” to the final encore, an amped-up reprise of that same song, it was perfectly clear that the Tubes weren’t just going through the motions.

They were having fun. No, scratch that. They were having a blast.

Watch the Tubes in their ’70s heyday performing “White Punks on Dope”

The band opened the show clad in suits, a nod to 1981’s The Completion Backwards Principle, a concept album spoofing a corporate business meeting that gave the band their first top 40 single, “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore.” They proceeded to play the entire album, beginning with “Talk to Ya Later” and including such perennial live favorites as “Mr. Hate” and “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.”

Waybill, born Sept. 17, 1950, is as charismatic and charming as he’s ever been, a towering, imposing maniac with a flair for show business, with an emphasis on the “show.” He ran through a series of costume changes, from his opening appearance in a white dinner jacket to a Tubes t-shirt for the twin encores of “She’s a Beauty” (the band’s biggest top 40 hit, peaking at #10 in 1983) and “Talk to Ya Later.”

In between came everything from a Japanese kimono for “Sushi Girl” to a red satin smoking jacket for “What Do You Want from Life.” For “Mondo Bondage,” Waybill came out in his trademark black leather bondage suit, albeit with the stage lights mercifully turned way low (Fee may still be Fee, but an exposed 68-year-old man butt… well, you get the picture). And for “White Punks on Dope,” Waybill brought back his notorious “Quay Lewd” character, a drugged-out transvestite with two-foot-tall platform shoes, a feather boa and a long, curly blond wig.

Waybill, whose real first name is John, and who before the band got signed was their roadie, may have been the star of the show, but he wasn’t the only standout.

Related: The Tubes’ debut album came out in 1975. What were the other great albums of that year?

Guitarist Roger Steen, like Waybill an original member of the band, repeatedly affirmed his stature as one of the most underrated guitarists of the classic rock era. Particularly compelling was his extended solo during “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore,” another song off The Completion Backward Principle, which marked the beginning of the band’s transition from a theatrical novelty to a brief but potent mainstay of MTV and rock radio.

And Prairie Prince amazed during a drum solo on the tail end of the Tubes’ mashup of “Let’s Make Some Noise” and “Stand Up and Shout.” (Classic rock fans, take note: Prince was the original drummer in Journey, before they made any recordings, and also toured and recorded for 16 years with the reconstituted Jefferson Starship assembled by Paul Kantner in 1992 after the Mickey Thomas-led embarrassment came to an end.)

Also around since day one was bassist Rick Anderson, with keyboardist David Medd the only “newcomer” (he joined the band in 1996).

When the Tubes tour, tickets are available via their website or here.

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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.

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