CONTROLLED CHAOS

At Paul Westerberg's show, rock energy and stage entropy wrestle to a draw

~ By BILL HOLDSHIP ~
March 3, 2005

Who's got Replacements tickets?” pleaded the raincoat-clad scalper standing in a downpour outside the Henry Fonda Music Box Theater last Tuesday night, February 22. It would seem he was more than a dozen years too late. Although Paul Westerberg was the integral part of the group many of us still consider America's last truly great rock 'n' roll band, he was, in many ways, only one-fourth of the whole Replacements equation. Nevertheless, judging by the steady cries for “Unsatisfied” that never diminished during his two-hour performance, it would also seem that the Replacements remain the primary reason Westerberg can still sell out multipule dates in Southern California, including this first of two Fonda nights. (The “requests” became so annoying by show's end, in fact, that Westerberg told one screamer to “Shush!” He also sarcastically inserted and emphasized the word treatment throughout his own “Love Untold” after some clod constantly hollered for the Replacements' “Treatment Bound.”)

Ironically, some of the evening's finest moments had nothing to do with his old group. “As Far as I Know” – from the recent Folker album – proved to be a gem, ranking alongside any of the great power-pop tunes Westerberg's delivered over the years. And “Knockin' on Mine,” from his first solo release, came on like gangbusters, an explosive rock 'n' roll tour de force. The band (which Westerberg comically named His Only Friends) also transformed numerous cover tunes – including Billy Joe Shaver's wonderful “Live Forever,” Dylan's “Only a Hobo,” and the Partridge Family's “I Think I Love You” – into truly transplendid things, making each their own. And when the players kicked into a spur-of-the-moment, impromptu rendition of the Stones' “Starfucker” – certainly another tribute to our fair city from the man who once snarled “Definitely not L.A.” on the Replacements' evocative “Left of the Dial” – it was good enough, following a ragged start, to remind you that rock 'n' roll can still be a glorious old noise.

Unfortunately, things just as often fell apart, with aborted songs, miscues, and frequent entropy. When the group surged from the old blues standard “I Got a Mind to Give Up Living,” featuring some kamikaze guitar work by Westerberg, into a dirge-like, impromptu version of “Kiss Me on the Bus,” everything immediately came unglued. (To be fair, they did follow with a fine re-creation of the version we all know and love from the 'Mats' Tim album.) When the concert was good, it was as close to rock 'n' roll as you're apt to get these days. But when it was bad … well, it wasn't the Replacements, try as Westerberg and company sometimes did to re-create that anarchic spirit.

The Replacements never, ever cared about being “hip,” which is why their anthems of frustration and angst more often than not made you want to laugh, as opposed to cry or – literally in Kurt Cobain's case – die. But along with that lack of “hip” came the self-deprecation and often downright uncertainty that's plagued Westerberg ever since. When he brought Lucinda Williams out to duet on an encore of Hank Thompson's “Wild Side of Life,” what could have been another amazing moment devolved into a train wreck. And when he laughed and said “We know we sucked” afterward, it was hard to argue the point. It was neither fun nor funny … and the Replacements were always both.

Still, when he ended with fiery renditions of “Alex Chilton” and “Left of the Dial,” it was easy to once again forgive all sins (while remembering that, with a little effort, Westerberg could still go down in rock history as one of the all-time greats). Although it now seems like a hundred years since the latter's battle cry of “Which side are you on?” even mattered, at least in music circles, Westerberg and crew still managed to make it sound like it deserves, if nothing else, to be the National Anthem of Rock 'n' Roll.

Los Angeles City Beat