Folks, it was the greatest show on earth! Nez was simply awesome. The Hellecasters played a hyperamplified 100 minute set, then there was an intermission. Nez came on and did an acoustic set with just an acoustic guitar! An absolute dream. Simply the best. Then most of the back up band came on and he did an electric set, even playing electric rhythm guitar. I was very surprised by the sets, purely acoustic to electric a la CSNY. Most of you already know the set list based on Brad posting Nez' note, but I'll list them anyway. I have to say that I thought it was way too loud, especially the Hellecasters set and the Nez electric set. Heck, I like it loud, but not THAT loud. I think the mixing man worked for The Who or someone. Also, though it was great to hear all of those songs in the electric set, I would have preferred hearing just Nez and his acoustic guitar for the whole concert. That's all I need: Nez, his acoustic, and his songs. No other frills or complications necessary. Don't get me wrong, I loved the ENTIRE concert! It's just that the electric set was mixed too loud and Nez' vocals were drowned out a bit. I have to say, anyone who thought Nez "spoke" some of the vocals in "Britt" would have been ecstatic last night. Nez was in absolutely incredible vocal form. I was simply amazed at how well he was SINGING every lyric with full force. The songs not in performance order (Hey, guys, help me out here! I can't remeber the order!): Calico Girlfriend Nine Times Blue The Crippled Lion Joanne Mama Nantucket Keys to the Car Silver Moon Thanx For the Ride Listen To The Band Bye Bye Bye Grand Ennui Propinquity Tomorrow & Me The Upside Of Goodbye Different Drum Some Of Shelly's Blues Marie's Theme Rio Cruisin' Laugh Kills Lonesome (reprised for the encore, kind of strange) Did I miss any, guys? I was blown away at hearing most of Magnetic South! One of my favorites for sure. Nine Time Blue and The Crippled Lion, dreams come true! I was surprised at hearing Keys To The Car and Mama Nantucket! Unbelievable that he did those. Nez, you were great! Thanks so much for the fabulous concert! Ken ----------------------------- Hi all! This is Brad. It was the most fantastic show ever! I've been waiting for a live Listen To The Band my entire life, and it was finally done right! Here is the Nez set list: acoustic solo Some Of Shelly's Blues Propinquity Nine Times Blue Marie's Theme Silver Moon Joanne Tomorrow & Me The Upside Of Goodbye electric Laugh Kills Lonesome Grand Ennui Mama Nantucket Calico Girlfriend The Crippled Lion Keys to the Car Bye Bye Bye Thanx For the Ride Cruisin' Rio Different Drum Listen To The Band encore Laugh Kills Lonesome (repeat) I plan to have some sound samples on the home page very soon, hope everyone else liked it as much as I did! And I really enjoyed meeting all of you! ----------------------------- From: goshmizer@aol.com (GoshMizer) Subject: Re: Nez-awesome Date: 19 Mar 1995 19:34:20 -0500 First off: Nez, if you're lurking - THANK YOU!! And thank the Hellecasters too! What a show!! Absolutely blew me away (of course I happened to be sitting in front of the speaker tower...). Thanks for playing Marie's Theme, too. The Prison is one of my all-time favorite works by anyone! (And, while I'm rambling on here, you mentioned someplace (I read it in MBF) that you'd be game for a reunion tour if you had a good back-up band. Well, you sure had one last night!! THEY ROCKED!! Think they'd go for it?) Next, congrats to Dave!! Way to go there! And of course the obligatory review: I got to the theatre about 6:00pm (still used to festival seating...) and met Nadine there. We hung around talking and glimpsing Nez occassionally until around 7:30 when they let us in. Karen, Tami, Eric, Kathy, Debbie, Brad, Kevin, Ken and others all showed up in there someplace. Tami brought an incredible bouquet of flowers (from The Garden, no doubt) which Brad was able to hand deliver to Nez with our messages (I'll let Brad fill in the details). Some of the alt.monkees group hung around at the front and introduced ourselves to each other prior to the show. It was great to meet all of you at last, but a little weird, trying to match up faces with on-line personnas. Anyway, the show started a little after 8:00 with the Hellecasters. What a band!! Absolutely blew the lid off of the dump! As Ken said, it was too loud. Everything was mixed well for their set, however, and once my eardrums scarred over and nose stopped bleeding, I was fine (although all of my fillings are still loose.) They ran through a set that lasted almost 2 hours! I've just gotta go get their CDs! (For those who don't know, they're an instrumental rock / country / good-luck-trying-to-define-'em three lead guitar band.) Absolutely tremendous. I must admit that about three or four songs into their set I wondered if Nez was gonna play, but I enjoyed them anyway. Just watching them play was exhausting - kind of like Roy Clark on speed x3! And that rhythm section was absolutely rock-solid! During intermission, some of the alt.monkees group meandered about near the front again, while I tried to find out if I had any hearing left. The second half started with Nez and his twelve string acoustic. Pure magic! He was in fine voice and really added a lot of emotional content to the songs. This was really the highlight for me since it allowed the music to shine through without the extra trappings. Unfortunately, some of the crowd left after the second or third song, apparently since they only wanted to see the Hellecasters. Pretty rude, I thought, and stupid, too. Fortunately, they left between songs, and four of 'em left my row so I got to slide over only one seat away from the aisle. Good seat? You bet! Musta been, Henry Diltz was in the aisle seat next to me, snappin' photos during Nez's set. Anyway, Nez ran through a whole bunch of stuff on acoustic. I hope someone posts a set list (Brad, you there?) since I didn't take any notes. Then the Hellecasters' rhythm section, John Jorgeson and a pedal steel guitar player came out, and Nez strapped on an electric six string. They blew through another bunch of great songs (how many did they play, anyway?) and rocked the place! Everyone looked like they were having the time of their lives up there! The rest of the Hellecasters came back for "Rio", "Cruisin'" and "Listen To The Band" plus a second run through of "Laugh Kills Lonesome" for the encore (kind of odd playing it twice, I thought...). With the whole group up there the sound was amazing. The mix could have been better, since I thought everything was so loud it was tough to hear the keyboards and, at time, Nez. He sang great though - his sustained high notes on "Rio" are pretty incredible! His whole set lasted close to an hour and a half, I think. Afterwards, Nez came to the edge of the stage and signed a few autographs (I, like a complete dufus was about two feet away from him with my back to the stage, completely unaware, and with nothing to sign, either...). The alt. monkees group sort of disbanded with eight of us going out to try and find a place to eat at about 1 AM. We ended up at a nice little pizza/pasta place in Westwood and talked and ate for about an hour before finally "logging off" and going our separate ways. The whole evening was just a blast! It was great to meet all of you (although I didn't get to meet everyone) and I hope there will be many more such opportunities in the future. But keep 'em spaced apart a little. I slept 'til Noon today. See ya 'round! Nathan aka GoshMizer (the secret's out!) P.S. Apologies to anyone I've left out. I'm pooped. ----------------------------- I'm back! Wow! What an experience! The concert was great! Nez was great! The Hellecasters were great! L.A. -- well not always so great. (Believe it or not, ya'll, the brakes on the rental car I was driving went out on me Sunday! Oh, man, no brakes and in L.A. no less! I was scared witless! I managed to get the car stopped without having a wreck, but it was not an easy thing to do let me tell you!) Other than that, it was OK. We made it an all Monkees-related trip. (for the most part -- we did stumble onto the taping of a television show Monday, so we stayed to watch that) Discovered "Freddy the Flute" from Puff 'n Stuff. Sort of a Monkees related thing there, but I don't know if the folks from a.m.m want to go through that all over again. (Jack Wild from Puff 'n Stuff played the Artful Dodger as did Davy -- see, Monkees connection) Went in search of Monkees memorobilia, came back with a bootleg video and some other stuff. Ate at the Monkees Cafe. Ordered take out from the Monkees Cafe. Hassled the people at the Monkees Cafe for shirts -- we got them, although the people there now think we're crazy. More coming..... Kathy -------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 1995 00:18:07 -0600 To: monkees@primenet.com From: calico@onramp.net (Kathy) Subject: Re: Nez-awesome - cyber-greetings Sender: owner-monkees@mailhost.primenet.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: monkees@mailhost.primenet.com Brad (in disguise) wrote: >I had already met Nadine and Ken Wang at the Hard Rock, and was especially >elated to meet Kathy, Tami and the rest up near the stage. It must have looked >to the normal concert attendees like we were a group of friends who already >knew each other, even though were were actually meeting face-to-face for the >very first time! I didn't see Ken until I went up the isles and had to drag >the shy guy down to the front row to meet everyone! It was a blast that won't >soon be forgotten. >>>>> Aw, gee, thanks Brad! It truly was wonderful meeting everyone! I'll write more about it all later (and have I got a lot to tell!). You were right about how it seemed to everyone around us. The couple in the center seats couldn't believe we had never met! (BTW, they had gotten their tickets through a ticket agent -- THAT'S how they got the best seats in the house. So they weren't celebrities, but I swear he was the spitting image of Lou Diamond Phillips.) I might as well let ya'll know now that I never made it to Ben Frank's. --Couldn't find the place! Ended up getting to the theatre in time to see Nez and Victoria (oh, and the Hellecasters) arrive though. That was pretty cool. I also didn't get a chance to say good-bye to several of you. I just *had* to run back and see Nez one last time. Got an autograph and a photo taken with him. I told him I was a member of the Internet group, and he asked my name, thought for just a minute, and said, "Yeah, I've seen your posts." Talk about Seventh Heaven! Everyone has been talking about how gracious Micky is (I completely agree there!), well Nez is just as gracious! As a matter of fact, so are the people who work for him. And Victoria is just the sweetest person. Well, that's enough for now. Kathy From: Karen R Pederson Subject: Re: THE CONCERT Date: Sun, 26 Mar 1995 12:51:21 -0800 I missed out on all the online chat after the concert.... But I just wanted to tell you all that Nez has never sounded better! I have seen him 5 times in the past 3 years (amazingly enough) and the Wadsworth show was by far the best. I kept thinking, I'm so glad I decided to come.....and how sorry I was that all of you weren't there..... Yes, he did look great, but even better than that was his demeanor. He was so relaxed! Most importantly, he really seemed to be enjoying himself. And that came through in the music. It was a magical evening. I really do wish you all could have been there. I was singing Mama Nantucket for days afterwards....... Karen