Monkee don’t
On Friday night, instead of going to see “Blade Runner 2049,” I almost went to see The Monkees 2049, the age that the surviving members are fast approaching. I was on Twitter when I saw that Mike Nesmith would be joining Micky Dolenz for his concert at the Canyon Club, not far from here up in Agoura Hills. Last year, and a few years before that, my friend Richard had gone with me twice to see the Monkees. (You can read about those concert experiences here and here.) So I emailed him:
Late last night, I learned that Mike Nesmith will be joining Micky Dolenz in his little club shows this Friday.
It’s pretty last-minute — but I’m toying with the notion of going.Want to go?!?!?
Nesmith has tweeted about it and said he and Micky are rehearsing “Me and Magdalena.”
My main interest here was, of course, in Mike Nesmith, who had said that last year’s appearance in Hollywood would be his final concert with The Monkees. Although I’m a huge fan of their 50th anniversary album of last year, I’m not much of a Monkees fan; what I am is a fan of Mike Nesmith’s singing voice and his Monkees songs. That this appearance would feature Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz and no Peter Tork just seemed like a bonus: even more focus on Nesmith.
Richard passed on the opportunity. I’m not much of an agonizer, but I have to admit even after Richard said no I was agonizing a bit about whether to go to this show. The Canyon Club is not my favorite venue; to get a seat, you have to order a (bad) dinner. When I went to see The Tubes there, the steak I ordered could have doubled as home plate, and I think it cost me thirty-six bucks. It’s like dinner theatre, with aging rock bands or people who’ve been kicked out of their bands putting on solo shows. Some time ago, Adrian Belew played there with some other former members of King Crimson. I’m surprised Pete Best isn’t playing there as “Best of the Beatles.” So you can pay handsomely for both the concert ticket and an inedible meal but claim a seat, or you can buy just the ticket and stand in the back for hours, through the opening act(s) and the headliner.
Finally I decided that as much as I would have liked to see Mike Nesmith, especially singing “Me and Magdalena,” one of my recent favorite songs, I’d pass. Instead, I took my wife and kids out to dinner and to Amoeba Records in Hollywood, where I bought myself another copy of Pere Ubu’s exceptional new album, “20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo,”and bought my wife a copy of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Greatest Hits because she wanted one and because I guess we were the last household in America to own one. Between dinner and the record store and my wife stopping in to ask excited questions at a sushi place where all the sushi comes along on a conveyor belt and you just pick what you want, and then her oohs and aahs when we stepped into the Arclight Hollywood and then the Cinema Dome, movie palaces she hadn’t been to before, we were having a terrific time, and then we went to see “Blade Runner 2049” and all of that slowed to a crawl… much like the movie… which left me thinking that maybe I should’ve gone to the Micky Dolenz / Mike Nesmith show.
Except:
As Micky Dolenz continued to tweet (or retweet) promos for Mike Nesmith’s forthcoming appearance at his show, the message got subtly changed:
Tonight! Join @TheMickyDolenz1 & special guest Michael Nesmith (1 song) in Agoura Hills, CA at @canyonconcerts
Note the “(1 song)” part. I had read that at the end of dinner while I was waiting for the check to arrive. Somebody felt the clarification was important (perhaps Mike Nesmith himself) — but didn’t it come too late for all those people who’d already bought tickets?
Here, by the way, is that one song (although it appears that Nesmith joined in for an encore at concert’s end as well). It gives me no satisfaction to note that Nesmith isn’t playing guitar… and that his vocal is off-key. Ouch.