No Rock And Roll Fun

FREE AT LAST: Or Becky Bamboo (No rock & roll fun's second favourite websearch after Jeremy Vine) goes to see Arthur Lee:
instead of scribbling notes about the concert randomly on any scratch paper I can find in my purse (B&N flyers, receipts, the phone bill) I've upgraded to a cute little purple notebook. some guy I was standing next to asked me what I was taking notes on. I told him the performance. later he commented to his friends something about not wanting his conversations written down. dude, if you're reading this - I wasn't writing anything down you were saying cos you weren't that interesting. and you dress funny. but you are friends with a guy who is friends with arthur lee so I won't make fun of your hair. but I could.
the opening band was stew. they were a big black guy with a goatee and a baseball cap who played the acoustic guitar, backed by a skinny white girl on backup vocals and electric guitar. the first line of the first song: "the naked dutch painter in the kitchen does not want to fuck you." the second song was about how ken (the doll) is gay and his bosses at mattel don't like it. "my name is ken and I like men." Two songs in and he's totally cracking my shit up. it was like an especially entertaining poetry slam set to music. he was witty and cool and had songs with words like "erudite" in them. one of the songs was him lamenting about being at a boring party and not being on any drugs. in another a girl gets out of rehab and joins a band called the "star of david brinkley". he was awesome. if I had had any money on me I would've bought a cd.
and then. arthur lee comes out, cool as fuck in a fringed jacket, cowboy hat, cowboy shirt, ostrich boots, and sunglasses. they open with 'my little red book' and rock the fuck out of it. I'm jumping up and down and trying not to grin too much. you can keep your overblown staduim rock dinosaur tours (the who, the rolling stones.. I'm looking at you)... give me love, baby. they swing into some of the later, more psychadelic songs, peppered here and there with some rockers from the first album. lee fairly spits out the line, "all I want in this world is to say I'm a man that's free" and you believe he means every word. in between songs he talks a bit about being in prison, rambles some stuff about God, and some more about politics. he says he was the first black hippie and will be the last. he calls sly stone an "egotistical ass" and casually mentions jimi.. janice.. jerry. I'm overwhelmed at being 2 feet from this man. towards the end of the show, after an incredible version of 'a house is not a motel' he says "I'd like to see Lenny Kravitz put on a show like this." HAHAHHAHAHA. he then clarifies, "no, no.. he's cool. he can't sing or write, but he's cool." HAHAHHAHHAAHAHA. I love arthur lee. the band plays for about 2 hours. no encore, but that's all right. I've had my socks rocked.