It wasn't a "modern rock" Woodstock. In fact, it didn't really hold a candle to last year's smash "Lollapalooza" tour.
MTV's "120 Minutes Tour," a concert spinoff of the station's "alternative music" program, featured both old-time punk rockers in newer bands and highly touted pop and rock acts. Unfortunately, while it seemed like a great idea on paper, the show lacked chemistry and, surprisingly, energy.Especially disappointing was headliner Big Audio Dynamite II, former Clash guitarist Mick Jones' second take on a rock and hip-hop blend. Now embracing portions of house music and England's "rave" scene, Jones is badly showing his age and seems to want to prove he's still up to the minute in his influences.
What that amounts to is musical confusion and a not very interesting experience, at least concertwise. Using a DJ to add samples throughout its set, the group concentrated most on its newer material, including the boring "Innocent Child" and the overrated "The Globe." In fact, when Jones finally got into "Medicine Show," the first single he recorded after the Clash broke up, he demonstrated how far he's sunk. To be frank, BAD was bad. Can a Clash reunion be far off?
Much brighter was Public Image Limited, which wisely revolves around former Sex Pistols' shrieker John Lydon's acidic howl. Though they also concentrated on recent material, Lydon did pepper the set with older gems, including a show-stealing cover of the dirgelike "Rise."
Also, much of the new material, including "Acid Drops" and "Cruel," was decent, and steady co-conspirators (including guitarist John McGeoch and bassist Allan Dias) seem to have helped Lydon, both on vinyl and live.
Best of all, Lydon's antics (most of which were fitting since he reminded some visually of Bart Simpson, with a Vanilla Ice haircut) were a definite bright spot. And though he got crude at times, he was good-natured enough to make you believe having a "dirty Uncle Johnny," as he called himself, might not be such a bad thing.
Probably the night's second-best performance came from Pennsylvania's Live, and that's not a real compliment, since it was partially by default on the others' parts. The band's in-concert performances pointed out its disconcerting tendency to cover material all over the musical spectrum, from folky acoustic pop to fervent rock like U2. Ed Kowalczyk's righteously fervent and adenoidal vocals were a bright spot, though, especially his knockout David Byrne impression on the politically correct "The Beauty of Gray."
The night's opener wasn't nearly so innocuous, though. Blind Melon was seriously out of place in a "modern rock" show. In places, in fact, their music sounded like Molly Hatchet being fronted by Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose (not too surprising since singer Shannon Hoon is a friend of Rose's and sings on GNR's "Don't Cry").
Worse, Hoon's attempts to "inject enthusiasm" by diving into the crowd and pleading for a positive response came off as unintentionally hilarious. Mercifully, the quartet played for only 30 minutes to a smattering of applause (most of which was probably out of relief).