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The Pendulum
Thursday, March 17, 1983
features
Seger makes good case
for ‘old time rock and roll’
by Debra Taylor
Staff Writer
The sold-out crowd was beginning to get
restless. It was 9:10 p.m. last Friday night.
Five minutes later, the lights in the
Greensboro Coliseum went out, and the
crowd became alive. The coliseum began to
tremble, and Bob Seger and the Silver
Bullet Band appeared on stage. The crowd
that once sat in their seats, waiting
impatiently, were now on their feet,
whistling and yelling at the top of their
Concert review
lungs. And it was only the beginning.
The grinning Bob Seger, dressed casually
in a pair of jeans, a black shirt and white
canvas shoes, started off what was to be a
22-song show with his hit “Feel Like a
Number.”
The Silver Bullet Band, with its two new
band members — drummer Don Brewer
previously in Grand Funk Railroad, and a
new guitarist who looked all of the age of
17 — did an equally fantastic job.
Saxophonist Alto Reed dressed in skin
tight red pants, with a white shirt that was
unbuttoned to his navel, and a pair of dark
sunglasses, was excellent. He played several
different types of saxophones and even
played the flute. He was “as good as the
guy from Bruce Springsteen’s band if not
better,” one of the fans conmiented,
referring to Clarence Clemmons of the E.
Street Band.
Standing behind Seger and his band.
stood three female singers all dressed in red
against the black background.
Seger, with his hair cut a lot shorter than
usual, but still with his mustache and
beard, played five songs off of his new
album, “TTie Distance.” His hit single
“Shame on the Moon,” along with “Roll
Me Away,” “Boomtown Blues,” “Even
Now,” and “Making Thunderbirds” were
all big crowd pleasers.
With his hands in his jeans pockets,
griiming at the crowd, Seger joked around
with the crowd about how hot it was on
stage. He often pulled at his drenched,
sticky shirt. But he did not seem to mind at
all. It looked as if he enjoyed putting on
the show just as much as the crowd enjoyed
watching it.
Seger also sang many of his older songs,
such as “Old-Time Rock and Roll,” “Still
The Same,” “Her Strut,” and “We’ve Got
Tonight.” After singing his hit
“Katmandu,” he and the Silver Bullet
Band, left the stage, only to return a few
minutes later to screaming fans to sing
“Night Moves” and “Hollywood Nights.”
He then left the stage again, but the crowd
wouldn’t let him stay gone long. He soon
returned to sing his final song “Turn The
Page.”
Bob Seger didn’t have many bright lights
or outrageous costumes. His concert was
nothing fancy; it was just plain good. For
the hundreds of people who spent a cold
night at the Greensboro Coliseum to get
tickets early in February, it was well worth
the wait.
SEGER played in a sold-out Greensboro ColiMnm last
Friday night. Those fans who waited so long for Seger tickets
were rewarded with his performance. Photo by Debra
Taylor.
Southern rock and blues energized crowd
by Walter Wlntermnte
Staff Writer
Little feet and larger feet
pounded the floor of the
Ramada Inn Friday night
Concert review
demanding more from
“Paul Barrere and Friends”
after an encore performance
of “All That You Dream.”
How ya’U doing?” said
the slightly balding former
Little Feat member, Paul
Barrere, to an enthusiastic
audience of Elon students
and devoted fans.
Dressed in a flowered shirt
with a “Dracula Sucks”
bumper sticker plastered
onto his black Fender guitar,
Barrere mixed some old
Little Feat tunes with two or
three cuts off of his newly
released solo album, “On
My Own Two Feet.”
“After Lowell (Lowell
George the late leader of
Little Feat) died, I was very
depressed,” said Barrere in
an interview after the con
cert. “I also couldn’t get a
record deal, and that made
me even more depressed.”
“Finally, my agent and I
got up the money for the
album ourselves,” he said.
“I recruited these guys
PAUL BARRERE, former lead guitarist for the now-defunct band Little Feat, performed
with The Dregs last Saturday night at Rumors in Burlington’s Ramada Inn. The
S.U.B.-sponsored concert was a mixture of old classics from Little Feat and new music from
Barrere’s recently released album. Photo by Ken Lipstein.
(some members of the group
The Dregs) and some of the
chorus people I knew in
Hollywood, and we cut on
album.”
Joining Barrere in concert
Friday night were three
mOTbers of The Dregs, a
critically acclaimed jazz-rock
fusion band formerly called
the “Dixie Dregs.”
“We dropped “Dixie,”
because everyone thought we
were a Southern Rock band,
which we aren’t,” said T.
Lavitz, keyboardist for the
Dregs. “All our close friends
just referred to us as The
Dregs so we dropped the
name.”
Mike Wheeler, a slide
guitar player from Cincin
nati, joined the other four
band members in a 20-min-
'ute jam session on a new
song by Barrere called
“Sweet Coquette” that got
people sitting at the back
tables of the Ramada stand
ing up and pushing closer
and closer towards the front
of the stage.
“The Underdogs,” a local
Southern rock group was the
opening band for Barrere.
They played songs by
Lynyrd Skynyrd and other
Southern rock artists.
A group of roadies and
Student Union Board mem
bers assisted in lifting amps
and adjusting the lights after
the Underdogs performed.
About 9:30, “Barrere and
Friends” jumped up on
stage and played one and a
half hours of the kind of
hard, riveting Southern rock
and blues that had propelled
Little Feat to stardom.
Barrere started off the set
with “Old Folks Boogie,” a
satirical song about getting
old that Barrere says he
wrote for his daddy, on
Little Feat’s “Waiting for
Columbus” album.
“Don’t you know that
you’re over the hill, when
your mind makes a promise
that your body can’t fill?”
Barrere wailed out the lyrics
in a Southern drawl.
“Love Sweet Love,” and
“She Lays Down The
Beat,” were other songs
Barrere played off of his
first solo album.
The concert peaked with
a marathon jam session led
by Rod Morgenstein, drum
mer for the Dregs. Andy
West of the Dregs hammer
ed out an impressive bass
line on a black, rectangular
instrument that resembled a
cigar box with strings more
than a bass guitar.
When T. Lavitz broke
into the set with a piano
solo, the performance
became pure Dregs, a blend
of jazz and rock that got the
audience stomping and hol-
eont. on p. 6