Chicago Sun Times review of the 8/2/97 Monkees show
at the Rosemont Theater.

THE MONKEES AT ROSEMONT THEATER
Bob Kurson

	Who said being cute and dreamy is no substitute for good
musicianship?
	
	The Monkees splashed the Rosemont Theater on Saturday with enough
mischievous hijinks, witty repartee and priceless facial expressions to
compensate for a barrelful of sour notes.  What you've heard about the
Monkees is true:  They're awful musicians, they can't sing and their newer
music stinks.  But Saturday's concert proved what we suspected all along:
They're still great showmen. 
	
	Touring without Mike Nesmith, the Monkees opened with their
classic "Last Train to Clarksville."  Poor Micky Dolenz established within
eight bars that his voice might be the only thing flimsier than his drum
playing.  You think Micky let his musical shortcomings stop him?  The man
with the happiest eyes in rock cackled it out anyway, tossing his head to
and fro behind the kit, eyelids popping open in a look of stunned
revalation with every chord change.  Like much of the night to follow, it
was light and splendid theater, and precisely what the delirious fortyish
crowd had come to see.

	Peter Tork tried hard, but for most of the evening displayed a
singing voice with a dynamic range somewhere between middle C and middle C
sharp.  For grace and nimbleness, his guitar solo on "That Was Then, This
Is Now" approximated the work of a novice typing student pecking away at a
rusty Olivetti.  Yet Tork good-naturedly served as straight man for the
humorous between-song banter that recalled the best of the Monkees on TV.

	But it was Davy Jones who ultimately stole the show.  The
Lilliputian heartthrob was all dynamo, dressed in smartly pressed white
pants and big-buttoned gold vest, and drove the women wild by continually
colliding his half-moon tambourine with a still-vital right hip.  Though
Jones' vocals were smothered in reverb and echo (Davy can't sing much,
either), the singer pranced and posed until every lady in the house saw in
him what Marcia Brady did back in 1971.  Positively dreamy.  

	No, the Monkees didn't sound good.  But you watched them work hard
for two hours for fans who truly love them, and you remember that a band
can be great, even when it doesn't sound good.