JuneFest lineup filled with veteran acts

Kirk Baird

Friday, June 2, 2000 | 8:26 a.m.

The 1980s have returned with a vengeance, according to a recent USA Today article.

One look at this year's JuneFest lineup and you'd think the same of the '70s. The annual daylong concert begins at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Sam Boyd Stadium's Silver Bowl Park.

Featuring Sammy Hagar, Pat Benatar, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, Paul Rodgers (former lead vocalist of Free and still the occasional frontman for Bad Company), Bachman Turner Overdrive, Mark Farner (former lead vocalist and guitarist Grand Funk Railroad), the concert bill is a testimonial to the potent draw of older acts.

Liz Overstreet, promotions director KKLZ 96.3-FM, said the eighth annual concert consistently pulls between 35,000 and 40,000 people. She said to expect the same this year. And with seven bands scheduled, there's plenty of groups and classic rock tunes to choose from.

"People need incentives to get up and go to a concert. They need to feel this is going to be great," Rodgers, in a phone interview from British Columbia, said. "The fact is the show has got to be attractive, either if one band is doing it, or to three or four bands. Whatever works, I guess, is the deal."

Thorogood agreed with Rodgers' more-is-better assessment.

"Individually, all these acts might draw five, six, 7,000 people, and if you put them all together, you're going to have 20- to 25,000 people coming to see the festival," Thorogood, in a phone interview from Southern California, said.

And the approach is nothing new, he added.

"Look at the Monterry (International) pop festival (in 1967 in San Francisco). Hendrix, Grateful Dead, the Who, Mamas and Papas -- and they were all big bands. I think it's a groovy thing."

But does it provide for more competition between the bands?

"I don't look at it like that," Thorogood said. "We're all in the same boat ... and that's to entertain the audience.

"It's kind of like an all-star game. You're working with the best acts in rock business and it kind of brings up your game a little bit."

Certainly performing with Rodgers would qualify that.

"Can't Get Enough"

Labeled by some as "the voice" of rock 'n' roll ("Look up 'rock singer' in the dictionary and there should be a photo of Paul Rodgers," opined the Boston Globe recently), Rodgers is known for his equally powerful and subtle vocals. Bands such as Free ("All Right Now") and classic-rock staple Bad Company ("Feel Like Makin' Love," "Can't Get Enough," "Bad Company" and "Rock and Roll Fantasy"), along with the Firm ("Radioactive"), known for its pairing of Rodgers and legendary guitarist Jimmy Page.

And though Rodgers has had the luxury of belting out soulful bluesy tunes for some of rock 'n' roll's biggest acts, he said it's worked against him when going solo.

"I wanted to work solo because people knew my voice as long as it was attached to Free or Bad Company," Rodgers said. "It was difficult for me to make a solo album and have people know who it was. We're aiming so that I can make a solo album and it'll be recognized as who I am."

And by releasing new material as an individual artist -- his latest CD, "Electric," arrives in stores Tuesday -- Rodgers also hopes to shed another label: simply another classic-rock performer.

"That's the dilemma I have, actually," Rodgers said in discussing the perception of him as just another veteran rocker clinging to a past career. "I'd like to be a current artist going out and making new CDs, which I am. But I have a backlog of what's become 'classic rock 'n' roll.' It wasn't at the time we recorded it; it's just become that now.

"I walk a fine line between the past, the present and the future. I try to put it all together. It's what I'm out there trying to do now."

"Get A Real Job"

Thorogood and his band face a different dilemma when it comes to his career. Already established as a blues-rock bar band with an attitude, the group keeps chugging along as it has for 20-plus years.

The growling vocals of Thorogood and his screaming slide guitar mesh perfectly alongside the wailing saxophone and dirty blues hooks. Throw in some of the best ready-made party songs out there ("Bad to the Bone," "I Drink Alone" "Get a Haircut") and it's a formula that's stood the test of time.

It's also one Thorogood isn't willing to change.

"A long time ago I said, 'Well, what can you do George? Do that.' I said, 'OK, I'll be the world's baddest bar band.' And it just kind of carried over from that," he said.

"We started out being a bar band underground group when FM radio was just about at its end. That's what I grew up on: Allman Brothers (Band), John Hammond, Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop. ... They were more of a word-in-the-street kind of group. That's what I strive to be."

And now that he has arrived "in the big leagues," Thorogood aims to stay there. Part of his plan of attack is to keep the band's name in front of the public by touring on a consistent basis -- at least it certainly appears that way. In fact, the band isn't on the road nearly as much as it seems, Thorogood said. For example, the Destroyers are on a break now and won't begin to hit the road full-time until late this month.

"The style (of music) we play, the type of material we do and the way we present ourselves, it just seems like the 'Road Warrior' mentality," he said. "That down-the-road, trucking-at-all-costs, no-holds-barred kind of a band. Which we are, but we wouldn't be able maintain if we did 300 dates a year for 20 years. We'd be dead."

And though it would seem a natural extension for Thorogood to take up the mantel of rock star, the singer-songwriter self-deprecatingly refers to himself as a waiter. "All I do is serve the people," Thorogood said with a laugh. "I have a menu and go out there and serve them for 90 minutes. I'm really a musical servant."