2010 Hootenanny – at Oak Canyon Ranch – Irvine, CA

I had a friend who once told me that going to a music festival to see one band was like going to Costco to buy a toothbrush.  I haven’t been to a music festival in a few years.  I don’t enjoy them. They are usually in some dust bowl in the Inland Empire. I usually end up couching all day from the kicked up dust from the mosh pits. I almost always get sunburned.  Water and food is way expensive. For some reason, there is always a nazi or hippie contingent. I took many years off the festival circuit. I always said that there would have to be a pretty big act to get me back to that type of event.

This summer, I got that big act. Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry were going to be playing the Hootenanny. Now, I’m not too into that newer rockabilly or psychobilly stuff but I love old rock n’ roll.  Chuck Berry INVENTED rock n’ roll.  Almost every album and every band I’ve ever enjoyed, I can trace back to that opening guitar riff of Johnny B. Goode.  I also hold Jerry Lee in high regard. To me, Jerry Lee Lewis was rock n’ roll’s original bad boy. I know that Elvis Presley shocked a nation when he shook his hips on television.  He had a certain naïveté about the whole thing and claimed he was just moving to the music. Jerry Lee played songs that were unabashedly dirty…for their time.

When I got to the Hootenanny, I learned that Jerry Lee Lewis had cancelled his portion of the evening.  Apparently, he is going to make up the gig in September so hold on to your ticket stubs. I walked into the gates of the Oak Canyon Ranch in Irvine and I was pleasantly surprised.  It wasn’t a dustbowl but a nice field of grass. Beer, water, and food prices were way affordable. I saw no nazis. I saw no hippies. Time to party!

The Hootenanny is not so much a music festival but a sort of music related convention.  Several clothing companies specializing in vintage looking threads had booths hocking their wares.  There was a booth with a barber on call so you could get your D.A. worked on. There was a huge field featuring classic restored hot rods.

I have to admit that I missed most the musical acts.  I was busy looking at cars, eating sausage and drinking beer. I did manage to see Chuck Berry jumping on the other main stage as Nick 13 was finishing his set. He kept signaling for the soundman to cut Nick off. Then when Nick 13 finished, Chuck just started.  There was no big introduction or anything. He just started up.

When it comes to these older acts, it is sort of known that many times backing bands are picked at the last minute. This can be a good or bad thing. It is well documented that Bo Diddley used to play Los Angeles being backed by the Blasters and members of X.

That being said, I think Chuck’s bass player was his regular backing bass player and I think his keyboardist may or may not have been his regular keyboardist.  However the drummer was from the band, Three Bad Jacks.  I don’t want to say anything mean but there were several cues that he would miss from Chuck and the bass player and several songs that could have been played faster.  Still, it was an impressive set.

Chuck led the crowd in rockers (Roll over Beethoven, Round and Round), bluesy numbers (Every day I got the Blues), and novelty songs like My Ding-A-Ling.  Where I was standing, people seemed too scared to sing a long but I understand they were screaming along up front.

Chuck Berry cracked the crowd up with his banter, “I may be an OOOld man, but I’m alive” he said to a buxom girl at the side of the stage. After he did his signature duck walk, he told the cheering fans, “I’m in my eighties, I can hardly do that anymore”

Finally, Chuck Berry played the song that inspired everyone after to pick up a guitar, Johnny B. Goode.  He told the stage hands to bring some women on the stage to dance with him.  One of the girls was a young toddler.  I have an inkling that she weren’t the type of girl Chuck wanted to see on stage with him.  That was all gravy.  Chuck played a long extended version of the song leading the crowd in several “Go-Go-Go’s”.  Then he left the stage leaving us all wanting more.

I could watch that entire set several times over. 

See you all in September for Jerry Lee Lewis.

-Joe Dana-
 

Photos:  -J. Moncrief-
Big Wheel Staff Photographer

More photos of the show can be seen HERE
 

 

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