OFF: Dictators live DFFD

[Doug Pearson]

After having missed a couple recent Bay Area shows (as well as the
Manitoba's Wild Kingdom tour 10 or 14 years back), it was great to finally
see the band that personifies ROCK AND ROLL like so few others are capable
of doing ...

They played selections from their three classic 70's albums, most of the
new one ('DFFD'), and several selections from the Manitoba's Wild Kingdom
album (kicking off the set with, "The Party Starts Now").  No covers (not
even "Slow Death", whose original author/singer, ex-Flamin' Groovie Roy
Loney, was in the house), but with a songwriter as good as Andy Shernoff,
who needs 'em?  You got your odes to wrestling ("Two Tub Man"), carnivorism
("Burn Baby" - OF COURSE we ate cheeseburgers before the show, even though
there's no White Castles in northern CA!), the local 'hood ("Avenue A" -
where the hippies/punks used to play), watching tv, etc.  And the recent
single, "Who Will Save Rock And Roll," is easily one of the all-time great
rock anthems.

Of course, Handsome Dick Manitoba's song introductions were vastly
entertaining throughout, although (to his credit) he didn't repeat the ones
he used for the albums - so no Eric Bloom reference before "Two Tub Man".
However, introducing another song, he told the audience that after this
song, "You'll be truly enlightened!  You won't need to go to no church or
synagogue or mosque or nothing," then added, "unless you're Sandy Pearlman
who's already enlightened" (or something to that extent about SP ... who he
seemed to imply might be in the audience that night ... there were certaily
enough guys in the audience who looked old enough to be SP, but I wouldn't
recognize the guy if he was walking around with a quaalude on his tongue
while calling out for, "Susie dear...").  (The song in question was "Pussy
and Money" - the two things that make the world go 'round - co-written by
David Roter.)  One big difference between the Dictators and BOC (as if
there weren't enough already) - the 'Tators must be about a foot taller on
the average (bassist Shernoff is something like 6'4" - way over 2 meters).

And for the HW camp (or the Nik/ICU camp of the HW camp, at least), lead
guitarist Ross the Boss bore a *frighteningly* close resemblance to Judge
Trev.  And, of course, Handsome Dick Manitoba is the same kind of high-
energy give-it-all-up-for-the-fans compelling rock frontman that Uncle Nik
is.

Finally, at 5 minutes before 2AM, the house lights came on and the set
ended.  Amazingly enough, the club let the band come back on for a two-song
encore (they certainly would have had a pissed-off audience otherwise),
which wound up several minutes after "closing time".

If you like rock and roll, see them when they come to your town!

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com