My early birthday celebration on Friday, October 2, 2009 continued. We had eaten a delicious dinner at The Palace (see earlier review) and were now waiting in the Dine and Ride shuttle van to take us to the Greek Theater.
I had heard of Kenny Loggins the solo artist before I had heard of the earlier duo Loggins and Messina. Loggins, or “The Log” as my wife calls him, has recorded many popular songs that were on the soundtracks of popular 80’s movies. The first cassette tape of music that my brother bought was the soundtrack to the movie Footloose that had two popular songs by Loggins, the title track and “I’m Free”. Later we got the Top Gun soundtrack with “Danger Zone” and “Playing with the Boys” by Loggins. A bit later I learned that Kenny Loggins was part of the duo Loggins and Messina in the early 70’s who recorded songs that were vaguely familiar to me such as “Your Mama don’t Dance” (later covered by the hair band Poison, the first version I heard), “Danny’s Song” and “Pooh Corner”.
My wife has a closer affiliation with “The Log”. Though Kenny Loggins was born in Washington State like me, he spent most of his childhood and youth in Alhambra, California like my wife. Also like my wife, he attended San Gabriel Mission High School (SGMHS). When he attended, SGMHS was co-ed and when my wife attended it had since changed to an all-girls school. I’m not sure if Loggins also graduated from there but he is one of the school’s most famous alumni, if not the most famous. Despite this affiliation and that Loggins has performed at many concerts in L.A. area since he lives relatively close by in Santa Barbara (on a bootleg concert DVD he referred to others from there as “Barbarians”), my wife hadn’t yet seen him live. During the past few years, his concerts such as the one at the cultural center at Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, and a free concert in Alhambra, would always sell out too quickly for us.
Four or five years ago, Loggins got back with his former recording partner, Jimmy Messina. They played some live concerts and released a CD of their greatest hits from the 70’s. My wife got this CD and I became familiar with many of their early songs. While Loggins’ solo work was mostly straight soundtrack vocal pop, his work with Messina was much more varied musically. There songs had lots of instrumentation. Some had Blues, Country, Celtic, and even Caribbean rhythms. And Jimmy Messina isn’t just part of the supporting band for Loggins. He sings lead for many of the songs and, I would learn, played lead guitar on nearly all of them. Loggins is primarily a vocalist. In 2009 we heard that they were touring together again. We heard about it early enough to get tickets to their show at the Greek Theater well in advance. We wouldn’t miss it this time.
Back to Friday, October 2, 2009, sometime between 6:50 and 7:00 pm, we had boarded the Dine and Ride shuttle van in the parking lot of the Palace restaurant. A couple who we had seen in the Palace also boarded the van. There was also a group of eight, most of whom had come to the Palace later than us, that we overheard were also taking Dine and Ride to the Loggins and Messina concert. They were still working on their entrees when we left to board the van. We thought the driver was waiting for them to board the van but after a few minutes he left with just four of us in the van despite enough room for fourteen. We rode north up Hillhurst. The traffic got heavy after we crossed the always crowded Los Feliz Blvd. It felt good not to be driving. We rode up to where Hillhurst merges with Vermont Ave. The driver didn’t stop at any other restaurants to pick people up. We overheard that the other couple riding with us had seen Kenny Loggins and/or Loggins and Messina several times before. One of them said he had seen Loggins and Messina 30 years ago. He was probably a teenager at that time.
Despite the traffic, the ride from the Palace to the Greek took only about 10 minutes. Somehow, the driver made a u-turn just past the Greek Theater and pulled over at the curb right outside the venue, just as he had said he would. He reassured us that his shuttle or another Dine and Ride shuttle van would pick us up at that very spot when the concert ended. I think they had shuttle vans running all evening. We entered the venue and employees scanned out tickets. There was no security check like there was at most other concerts I had attended. There also wasn’t a queue to get in. Just inside was a counter where they were selling lots of Loggins and Messina merch. There were many t-shirts including one with the words “Your Mama don’t Dance and your Daddy don’t Rock ‘n’ Roll”. They had key chains and CD’s including the children’s CD “All Join In” from Kenny Loggins. We noticed that the CD included the funky Blues Loggins and Messina song “Long Tail Cat”. I was surprised to see that one on a children’s CD, but it is a funny song. My wife got a green long-sleeved women’s t-shirt with the Loggins and Messina logo.
We made our way towards our seats. We had “bench” seats that were all the way in the back. When we showed our tickets to an employee, he told us to talk to another employee who he pointed out who would move us up. We went to him and he gave us new tickets, moving us up some rows. They had covered up the back bench seats and several of the back rows with netting that looked like green leaves or ivy. They had plenty of seats and were moving people up to fill the closer ones. Our new seats, row R seats 106 and 108, were still pretty good with straight-ahead views of the stage. The backdrop of the stage appropriately looked like the façade of the Parthenon or other Greek building. There were large screens on either side of the stage and a smaller, circular screen above the middle of the stage. They showed ads for Loggins and Messina CDs, both as a duo and as solo artists such as Loggins’ “All Join In” and Messina’s “Under a Mojito Moon”. There were also ads for the opening act, the Gabe Dixon Band, and other acts that would be performing at the Greek Theater in the next couple of months.
The crowd consisted of people 10 or more years older than us and mostly Caucasian though there were some Asians. There were a few teenagers who looked like they came with their parents and some people who looked to be around our age or possibly younger. The people in the crowd more often wore polo shirts than t-shirts. I saw someone wearing a hat with the name of the band Poco on it. For canned music, it sounded like they were playing a Huey Lewis and the News greatest hits CD. But then that CD started skipping badly on the song “Cruisin’”, a duet with Gwyneth Paltrow. They then put on a Blues CD.
At 7:30 the lights dimmed and the spotlight turned on for the opening act: the Gabe Dixon Band. The band consisted of two men: Gabe Dixon on keyboards who would also play keyboards for Loggins and Messina, and Jano Rix on drums and percussion. This lineup differed from the ads on the screens earlier that showed three men in the band. Gabe Dixon said he was from Nashville and that the first song was about driving home from New York. It was a mellow song with the repeated lyric “Five more hours”. After that song Dixon said he wrote the next song while in Ashville, North Carolina and that it had some Bluegrass influence. Rix tapped a guitar and the song was faster and more rhythmic than the first one. Dixon got the crowd clapping. Before the next song, he said this was his first time performing at the Greek Theater and that the next song was featured in the movie The Proposal. He said that it’s played when Ryan Reynold’s character is frantically running through the streets of Manhattan. It was a fast-paced song called “Find My Way”. Pink lights danced on the stage as they played.
Dixon said the next song was called “Disappear” and was about Romeo and Juliet. It was a slower song without the drum accompaniment. After the first verse, Jano Rix tapped the body of an acoustic guitar as he had for the second song. In a high voice, Dixon sang lyrics such as “How can we disappear”. Before the next song Dixon described how this was a chance to expose his music and warm us up for the “L & M Show”. He asked us to sing along to the next song to a part of the chorus that went “Whoa whoa oh oh oh” or something like that. It was a fast song about “running on fumes” in the “orange light”. The singalong was only part of the song during the chorus. It also included some jazzy keyboard playing from Dixon. After the song Dixon said that “it couldn’t be a better night” and that he would do just a couple more songs. He described how he wrote the next one after “going through a tough spell”. It was called “All Will be Well” and was a slow soulful song. Jano Rix reverted to tapping the acoustic guitar. One line of the song went “you can ask me how but only time will tell.”
After the song Dixon introduced his bandmate, Jano Rix, as an amazing multi-instrumental musician. He thanked Loggins and Messina for letting him play before their show and he and Rix started playing a fast upbeat song with more jazzy piano. Dixon got the audience clapping and sang about a “yellow light” and “until you’ve gone”. They ended the song to loud applause, bowed, and left the stage. It was 8:05 pm. The lights and the canned music came back on and the screens showed the same ads for CD’s and shows at the Greek as before. The crew re-arranged the instruments, removing Rix’s drumkit and Dixon’s keyboards. For canned music they played 70’s classic rock such as “Take a Look Ahead” by Boston and “25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago. The crew set out keyboards, drums, a steel guitar, electric guitars, and saxophones. Two chairs were set up in front of the stage along with microphone stands.
At 8:21 pm the lights dimmed again and Kenny Loggins and Jimmy Messina came out to wild applause. They sat down at the two chairs in front. Sitting on the left, Kenny Loggins had aged well looking trim in a black leather jacket and blue jeans with a full head of hair that was just barely turning gray. Sitting on the right, Jimmy Messina was more heavyset in a black shirt and black pants and a black cowboy hat covering the receding hairline between his long side locks of hair. But we would soon hear that his singing and excellent musicianship hadn’t aged a bit. If anything he had gotten better. Messina said it was “exciting to be home”. He explained at some point that though he lived in Santa Barbara, he was born in L.A. He described how this was the first song they played together and they started playing the soft but powerful ballad “Danny’s Song”. They had the audience sing along to the chorus and we obliged. They had a full band behind them: a musician who alternated between guitar and a violin that he played during the interlude in “Danny’s Song”, two musicians who alternated between guitars, flute, and saxophone, a drummer, a bass player, and Gabe Dixon on keyboards. Three member of the band including Gabe Dixon were wearing the same style of plaid shirt. Both Loggins and Messina played guitars with Messina on lead guitar for most of the songs.
For the next song, Messina described how “back in 1970, this guy (Loggins) walked into my house and played this song, the song about the bear.” There were wild cheers and they played “Pooh Corner”. Paired with “Danny’s Song”, it was kind of mellow start to the concert. But they were still sitting down and warming up. “Pooh Corner” had flute accompaniment and late in the song us in the audience sang the part the goes “count al lthe bees in the hive, chase all the clouds from the sky.” After the song Loggins described how during one of their early concerts at a club there was this big biker with long red hair who sat in front and gave them the stink eye through the first several songs of their set. Finally he said in a loud and low voice imitated by Loggins “Do the one about the bear!” “You never know.” Loggins remarked.
Messina described how he wrote the next song during their first tour together. It was the faster “Traveling Blues”. Messina sang lead and Loggins would join in for the choruses. The song featured a saxophone solo and the lighting effects created stars in the background of the stage. After finishing that song Loggins described in detail the origin of the next one. He had a weird dream in which he was trapped on an island where there was a convention of songwriters. In the dream he and the songwriters did this exercise where they passed around pieces of paper. Each time they received a piece of paper, they would write a line of lyrics that went with the other lyrics on the paper, pass it along and do this with the next one passed to them. After having this dream, Loggins suggested to Messina that they try writing a song this way and the result was “Watching the River Run”. When I first heard this song I thought it had a kind of “back and forth” conversation quality. Now I know why. They performed the song with only Loggins and Messina playing and singing on the first verse and the rest of the band joining in for the second. Towards the end two members of the band played what looked like flutes or electric recorders.
Loggins and Messina switched to different electric guitars for the next song. Loggins described how he would assume different characters that he had made up with different voices when he wrote each of his songs. As an example he said he assumed the character named “Billy” when he wrote song “Vahevala” and for the next song, he pretended he was “an old blues guy.” In response, Messina said something like, “Now you can just look in a mirror.” The song was the funky, bluesy, and slightly folksy “Long Tail Cat” and started with just Loggins and Messina singing and the sound of a loud, echoed bass. The rest of the band soon joined in. The audience got into it and Loggins had us sing along to the line “Oh my, oh my my. Your daddy’s getting older and the cow is going dry. So you go by, go bye bye on a Dixie holiday.”
There was a woman in front of us who stood up and danced to every song, cheered wildly, and sang along. At one point she asked if she could use my binoculars for a few minutes. Not too far away it smelled like some other people were smoking something other than tobacco. The weather had been sunny and clear during the day and even though the sun had gone down when we could still see the outline of the hills of Griffith Park behind the stage and across the street. The sun going down made it very cool, though, and we wished we had brought jackets like most people.
For the next song, Messina wore 2-3 instruments, holding one guitar on front and the other one or two on his back. He described how he had a CD for sale at the venue called “Under a Mojito Moon” and that he was slightly annoyed that Loggins also had a CD for sale that was $1 less in price. It was called “All Join In” and wasn’t coming out officially until 2010. Messina described how Loggins had asked him to “join in” for the next song that was on the CD. Loggins then said that the next song wasn’t one of theirs but a Lennon-McCarthy song. He said he could imagine himself and Messina as teenagers riding their bikes down the neighborhood street singing this song. It was the Beatles song “Two of Us”. The circular screen above the stage showed a scene of traveling through the countryside. During the song Messina switched to a different guitar and, finally, a mandolin.
Messina had removed his cowboy hat after the first couple of songs and said he had to put it back on to get in the mood for the next song. It was “Listen to a Country Song” and it did have a loud country beat accompanied by blinking bright yellow, orange, and blue spotlights. The song seemed to tell a story about the “Holiday Hotel”. Right after they finished, someone yelled, “Don’t ever break up again!”
The next song wasn’t one I’d heard them do before so I wasn’t sure if it was a cover or not. Loggins said it was inspired by the beginning of Rock & Roll. It began with the line “Georgia on my Mind” but still didn’t sound completely familiar. Only Loggins and Gabe Dixon played during the first verse and then Messina and the rest of the band joined in. It got very rockin’ and included the line “Back to Georgia”. We recognized the next song. Before playing it Loggins described how this concert was “a perfect setting”. Messina picked up a mandolin and they played “Be Free”, a laid back song that has a long instrumental interlude in the middle. Messina did a mandolin solo while another band member played a flute or recorder. The interlude included some Celtic-sounding music.
We didn’t recognize the next song but it sounded very bluesy with Messina singing lead. The line “Walking on out the door” was featured prominently along with piano playing by Gabe Dixon. The circular screen showed traveling through a tunnel and simulated stars made up the background of the stage. The music turned to more upbeat Blues (an oxymoron?) featuring the lyric “Give her the best that you got”. It showed down toward the end and then went right into the next song, the mellow and soulful “Have a little Peace of Mind.” This song featured one of the two saxophone players. Towards the end, Loggins put down his guitar, picked up the microphone, and sang loudly and soulfully. The audience really got into it and gave him a standing ovation by the end.
The next song, “Angry Eyes” was more rockin’. It featured another long sax solo, an impressive guitar solo by Messina, and then the sax player and Messina together. Red and blue lights shined on the stage and there was a flute or electric recorder solo. The circular screen showed landscape. Before the next song they introduced the band. This song featured both saxophone players. It was a loud Blues song that featured the lyric “You need a man.” The circular screen showed a slow dancing figure. It also showed images of Loggins and Messina when they were much younger and had very long hair. Loggins also had a long beard. The present Loggins said something like “Come on, we all had long hair.” There was also loud percussion and keyboards. One sax player did a solo and then the other did one. They played together and seemed to be trying to outdo each other. I believe Loggins said their names were Big Jim Wheeler and Steve Nieves. Towards the end Messina and the bassist played together. Red and yellow lights shone on stage. When they finished they said, “Thank you. You have been great.” And they left the stage. It was 9:50 pm.
Along with the crowd, we cheered for two minutes before they all returned to the stage to even louder cheers. The first song of the encore began with just Loggins playing. It was the raucous song about sailing “Vahevala”. The rest of the band soon joined in and Gabe Dixon played steel drums at one point. It had a long instrumental part and this time Loggins played the guitar solo. As they played, I noticed that the spotlights above the stage looked a bit like palm trees. They then played the more raucous “Your Mama don’t Dance” that brought everyone to their feet. They added an extended instrumental part and the circular screen showed old people dancing, in contrast to the song. I couldn’t see who said the part “Get out of the car, Long Hair!”
They left the stage and we cheered them back on. They did one more song, “Nobody but You”, a fast number, as yellow lights shone on stage. After they finished the song all the member of the band gathered in front of the stage and bowed. As they left to loud applause and cheering some of them shook hands with the closer member of the audience. It was 10:10 pm. A few people had stated leaving during the final song. It was crowded walking out of the venue passed the merch table. Once outside there was a long queue waiting to board the Dine and Ride shuttle vans. We had to wait for a van to fill and leave before we could board one. A blond man in a Dine and Ride shirt reassured us that more vans were coming. His voice sounded like that of Mark who I had called to ask about valet parking many hours before. We boarded a full shuttle and sat in the back seat. The driver was different from before. The van drove south on Vermont Avenue. Some of the other riders seemed disappointed that Loggins and Messina didn’t do any later popular Kenny Loggins songs such as “Celebrate Me Home”. I wasn’t disappointed. One rider also mentioned wanting to see the new musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, conduct. The L.A. Downtown News has since made his name the root of the words “Dudamania”, “Dudameloriffic”, and “Dudanomics”.
The van dropped off most of the other riders at the Dresden restaurant on Vermont Ave. It dropped off everyone else except us at a restaurant further south on Hillhurst and then drove north to drop us off at the Palace. It was 10:40 pm. We thought about taking the exact route back that we took to get there but we couldn’t easily turn to go south on Hillhurst. Turning left out of the parking lot was difficult and what looked like an exit onto Ambrose was blocked by a chain. We turned right to drive north on Hillhurst, turned right on Avocado, and right on Commonwealth to get back to the reverse route home: left (east) on Franklin, left (northeast) on St. George, right (southeast) on Griffith Park, left (north) on Hyperion, right (east) Rowena that turns into Glendale Ave, left on Fletcher Driver at a very confusing intersection and finally, onto the 2 freeway north.
From the 2 we got onto the 134 east that turned into the 210. But then traffic got very slow. At some distant point, two of the three lanes were closed for road work but the signs didn’t way at what point. The left lanes were very slow. The right lanes were faster but at some point they would be closed. It took what seemed like a long and frustrating time. Eventually we got to where the road work was taking place near the 605. Not until that point did the traffic clear up. We got home at 12:10 am the day after the concert.
Despite the commute home we enjoyed the concert very much. It made me see Kenny Loggins as more than a just a pop star on 80’s film soundtracks and Messina as more than a sidekick but rather a full partner in a duo and an excellent musician. He could sing well, too, even if his voice isn’t as well-known as that of Loggins and Messina could really play the guitar and mandolin. Both Loggins and Messina are accomplished in many different musical styles all on display at the concert. I didn’t miss Loggins’ later pop hits at all. Now I think I like Loggins and Messina better and now I know that it is possible to have a good concert experience at the Greek Theater thanks to Dine and Ride. We’ll definitely use them for the next time we see a show at the Greek.
You despite some “Traveling Blues” on the way home the “Two of Us” did not have “Angry Eyes”. Thanks to Dine and Ride we were about to “Find (Our) way” to the concert on time.
I had heard of Kenny Loggins the solo artist before I had heard of the earlier duo Loggins and Messina. Loggins, or “The Log” as my wife calls him, has recorded many popular songs that were on the soundtracks of popular 80’s movies. The first cassette tape of music that my brother bought was the soundtrack to the movie Footloose that had two popular songs by Loggins, the title track and “I’m Free”. Later we got the Top Gun soundtrack with “Danger Zone” and “Playing with the Boys” by Loggins. A bit later I learned that Kenny Loggins was part of the duo Loggins and Messina in the early 70’s who recorded songs that were vaguely familiar to me such as “Your Mama don’t Dance” (later covered by the hair band Poison, the first version I heard), “Danny’s Song” and “Pooh Corner”.
My wife has a closer affiliation with “The Log”. Though Kenny Loggins was born in Washington State like me, he spent most of his childhood and youth in Alhambra, California like my wife. Also like my wife, he attended San Gabriel Mission High School (SGMHS). When he attended, SGMHS was co-ed and when my wife attended it had since changed to an all-girls school. I’m not sure if Loggins also graduated from there but he is one of the school’s most famous alumni, if not the most famous. Despite this affiliation and that Loggins has performed at many concerts in L.A. area since he lives relatively close by in Santa Barbara (on a bootleg concert DVD he referred to others from there as “Barbarians”), my wife hadn’t yet seen him live. During the past few years, his concerts such as the one at the cultural center at Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, and a free concert in Alhambra, would always sell out too quickly for us.
Four or five years ago, Loggins got back with his former recording partner, Jimmy Messina. They played some live concerts and released a CD of their greatest hits from the 70’s. My wife got this CD and I became familiar with many of their early songs. While Loggins’ solo work was mostly straight soundtrack vocal pop, his work with Messina was much more varied musically. There songs had lots of instrumentation. Some had Blues, Country, Celtic, and even Caribbean rhythms. And Jimmy Messina isn’t just part of the supporting band for Loggins. He sings lead for many of the songs and, I would learn, played lead guitar on nearly all of them. Loggins is primarily a vocalist. In 2009 we heard that they were touring together again. We heard about it early enough to get tickets to their show at the Greek Theater well in advance. We wouldn’t miss it this time.
Back to Friday, October 2, 2009, sometime between 6:50 and 7:00 pm, we had boarded the Dine and Ride shuttle van in the parking lot of the Palace restaurant. A couple who we had seen in the Palace also boarded the van. There was also a group of eight, most of whom had come to the Palace later than us, that we overheard were also taking Dine and Ride to the Loggins and Messina concert. They were still working on their entrees when we left to board the van. We thought the driver was waiting for them to board the van but after a few minutes he left with just four of us in the van despite enough room for fourteen. We rode north up Hillhurst. The traffic got heavy after we crossed the always crowded Los Feliz Blvd. It felt good not to be driving. We rode up to where Hillhurst merges with Vermont Ave. The driver didn’t stop at any other restaurants to pick people up. We overheard that the other couple riding with us had seen Kenny Loggins and/or Loggins and Messina several times before. One of them said he had seen Loggins and Messina 30 years ago. He was probably a teenager at that time.
Despite the traffic, the ride from the Palace to the Greek took only about 10 minutes. Somehow, the driver made a u-turn just past the Greek Theater and pulled over at the curb right outside the venue, just as he had said he would. He reassured us that his shuttle or another Dine and Ride shuttle van would pick us up at that very spot when the concert ended. I think they had shuttle vans running all evening. We entered the venue and employees scanned out tickets. There was no security check like there was at most other concerts I had attended. There also wasn’t a queue to get in. Just inside was a counter where they were selling lots of Loggins and Messina merch. There were many t-shirts including one with the words “Your Mama don’t Dance and your Daddy don’t Rock ‘n’ Roll”. They had key chains and CD’s including the children’s CD “All Join In” from Kenny Loggins. We noticed that the CD included the funky Blues Loggins and Messina song “Long Tail Cat”. I was surprised to see that one on a children’s CD, but it is a funny song. My wife got a green long-sleeved women’s t-shirt with the Loggins and Messina logo.
We made our way towards our seats. We had “bench” seats that were all the way in the back. When we showed our tickets to an employee, he told us to talk to another employee who he pointed out who would move us up. We went to him and he gave us new tickets, moving us up some rows. They had covered up the back bench seats and several of the back rows with netting that looked like green leaves or ivy. They had plenty of seats and were moving people up to fill the closer ones. Our new seats, row R seats 106 and 108, were still pretty good with straight-ahead views of the stage. The backdrop of the stage appropriately looked like the façade of the Parthenon or other Greek building. There were large screens on either side of the stage and a smaller, circular screen above the middle of the stage. They showed ads for Loggins and Messina CDs, both as a duo and as solo artists such as Loggins’ “All Join In” and Messina’s “Under a Mojito Moon”. There were also ads for the opening act, the Gabe Dixon Band, and other acts that would be performing at the Greek Theater in the next couple of months.
The crowd consisted of people 10 or more years older than us and mostly Caucasian though there were some Asians. There were a few teenagers who looked like they came with their parents and some people who looked to be around our age or possibly younger. The people in the crowd more often wore polo shirts than t-shirts. I saw someone wearing a hat with the name of the band Poco on it. For canned music, it sounded like they were playing a Huey Lewis and the News greatest hits CD. But then that CD started skipping badly on the song “Cruisin’”, a duet with Gwyneth Paltrow. They then put on a Blues CD.
At 7:30 the lights dimmed and the spotlight turned on for the opening act: the Gabe Dixon Band. The band consisted of two men: Gabe Dixon on keyboards who would also play keyboards for Loggins and Messina, and Jano Rix on drums and percussion. This lineup differed from the ads on the screens earlier that showed three men in the band. Gabe Dixon said he was from Nashville and that the first song was about driving home from New York. It was a mellow song with the repeated lyric “Five more hours”. After that song Dixon said he wrote the next song while in Ashville, North Carolina and that it had some Bluegrass influence. Rix tapped a guitar and the song was faster and more rhythmic than the first one. Dixon got the crowd clapping. Before the next song, he said this was his first time performing at the Greek Theater and that the next song was featured in the movie The Proposal. He said that it’s played when Ryan Reynold’s character is frantically running through the streets of Manhattan. It was a fast-paced song called “Find My Way”. Pink lights danced on the stage as they played.
Dixon said the next song was called “Disappear” and was about Romeo and Juliet. It was a slower song without the drum accompaniment. After the first verse, Jano Rix tapped the body of an acoustic guitar as he had for the second song. In a high voice, Dixon sang lyrics such as “How can we disappear”. Before the next song Dixon described how this was a chance to expose his music and warm us up for the “L & M Show”. He asked us to sing along to the next song to a part of the chorus that went “Whoa whoa oh oh oh” or something like that. It was a fast song about “running on fumes” in the “orange light”. The singalong was only part of the song during the chorus. It also included some jazzy keyboard playing from Dixon. After the song Dixon said that “it couldn’t be a better night” and that he would do just a couple more songs. He described how he wrote the next one after “going through a tough spell”. It was called “All Will be Well” and was a slow soulful song. Jano Rix reverted to tapping the acoustic guitar. One line of the song went “you can ask me how but only time will tell.”
After the song Dixon introduced his bandmate, Jano Rix, as an amazing multi-instrumental musician. He thanked Loggins and Messina for letting him play before their show and he and Rix started playing a fast upbeat song with more jazzy piano. Dixon got the audience clapping and sang about a “yellow light” and “until you’ve gone”. They ended the song to loud applause, bowed, and left the stage. It was 8:05 pm. The lights and the canned music came back on and the screens showed the same ads for CD’s and shows at the Greek as before. The crew re-arranged the instruments, removing Rix’s drumkit and Dixon’s keyboards. For canned music they played 70’s classic rock such as “Take a Look Ahead” by Boston and “25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago. The crew set out keyboards, drums, a steel guitar, electric guitars, and saxophones. Two chairs were set up in front of the stage along with microphone stands.
At 8:21 pm the lights dimmed again and Kenny Loggins and Jimmy Messina came out to wild applause. They sat down at the two chairs in front. Sitting on the left, Kenny Loggins had aged well looking trim in a black leather jacket and blue jeans with a full head of hair that was just barely turning gray. Sitting on the right, Jimmy Messina was more heavyset in a black shirt and black pants and a black cowboy hat covering the receding hairline between his long side locks of hair. But we would soon hear that his singing and excellent musicianship hadn’t aged a bit. If anything he had gotten better. Messina said it was “exciting to be home”. He explained at some point that though he lived in Santa Barbara, he was born in L.A. He described how this was the first song they played together and they started playing the soft but powerful ballad “Danny’s Song”. They had the audience sing along to the chorus and we obliged. They had a full band behind them: a musician who alternated between guitar and a violin that he played during the interlude in “Danny’s Song”, two musicians who alternated between guitars, flute, and saxophone, a drummer, a bass player, and Gabe Dixon on keyboards. Three member of the band including Gabe Dixon were wearing the same style of plaid shirt. Both Loggins and Messina played guitars with Messina on lead guitar for most of the songs.
For the next song, Messina described how “back in 1970, this guy (Loggins) walked into my house and played this song, the song about the bear.” There were wild cheers and they played “Pooh Corner”. Paired with “Danny’s Song”, it was kind of mellow start to the concert. But they were still sitting down and warming up. “Pooh Corner” had flute accompaniment and late in the song us in the audience sang the part the goes “count al lthe bees in the hive, chase all the clouds from the sky.” After the song Loggins described how during one of their early concerts at a club there was this big biker with long red hair who sat in front and gave them the stink eye through the first several songs of their set. Finally he said in a loud and low voice imitated by Loggins “Do the one about the bear!” “You never know.” Loggins remarked.
Messina described how he wrote the next song during their first tour together. It was the faster “Traveling Blues”. Messina sang lead and Loggins would join in for the choruses. The song featured a saxophone solo and the lighting effects created stars in the background of the stage. After finishing that song Loggins described in detail the origin of the next one. He had a weird dream in which he was trapped on an island where there was a convention of songwriters. In the dream he and the songwriters did this exercise where they passed around pieces of paper. Each time they received a piece of paper, they would write a line of lyrics that went with the other lyrics on the paper, pass it along and do this with the next one passed to them. After having this dream, Loggins suggested to Messina that they try writing a song this way and the result was “Watching the River Run”. When I first heard this song I thought it had a kind of “back and forth” conversation quality. Now I know why. They performed the song with only Loggins and Messina playing and singing on the first verse and the rest of the band joining in for the second. Towards the end two members of the band played what looked like flutes or electric recorders.
Loggins and Messina switched to different electric guitars for the next song. Loggins described how he would assume different characters that he had made up with different voices when he wrote each of his songs. As an example he said he assumed the character named “Billy” when he wrote song “Vahevala” and for the next song, he pretended he was “an old blues guy.” In response, Messina said something like, “Now you can just look in a mirror.” The song was the funky, bluesy, and slightly folksy “Long Tail Cat” and started with just Loggins and Messina singing and the sound of a loud, echoed bass. The rest of the band soon joined in. The audience got into it and Loggins had us sing along to the line “Oh my, oh my my. Your daddy’s getting older and the cow is going dry. So you go by, go bye bye on a Dixie holiday.”
There was a woman in front of us who stood up and danced to every song, cheered wildly, and sang along. At one point she asked if she could use my binoculars for a few minutes. Not too far away it smelled like some other people were smoking something other than tobacco. The weather had been sunny and clear during the day and even though the sun had gone down when we could still see the outline of the hills of Griffith Park behind the stage and across the street. The sun going down made it very cool, though, and we wished we had brought jackets like most people.
For the next song, Messina wore 2-3 instruments, holding one guitar on front and the other one or two on his back. He described how he had a CD for sale at the venue called “Under a Mojito Moon” and that he was slightly annoyed that Loggins also had a CD for sale that was $1 less in price. It was called “All Join In” and wasn’t coming out officially until 2010. Messina described how Loggins had asked him to “join in” for the next song that was on the CD. Loggins then said that the next song wasn’t one of theirs but a Lennon-McCarthy song. He said he could imagine himself and Messina as teenagers riding their bikes down the neighborhood street singing this song. It was the Beatles song “Two of Us”. The circular screen above the stage showed a scene of traveling through the countryside. During the song Messina switched to a different guitar and, finally, a mandolin.
Messina had removed his cowboy hat after the first couple of songs and said he had to put it back on to get in the mood for the next song. It was “Listen to a Country Song” and it did have a loud country beat accompanied by blinking bright yellow, orange, and blue spotlights. The song seemed to tell a story about the “Holiday Hotel”. Right after they finished, someone yelled, “Don’t ever break up again!”
The next song wasn’t one I’d heard them do before so I wasn’t sure if it was a cover or not. Loggins said it was inspired by the beginning of Rock & Roll. It began with the line “Georgia on my Mind” but still didn’t sound completely familiar. Only Loggins and Gabe Dixon played during the first verse and then Messina and the rest of the band joined in. It got very rockin’ and included the line “Back to Georgia”. We recognized the next song. Before playing it Loggins described how this concert was “a perfect setting”. Messina picked up a mandolin and they played “Be Free”, a laid back song that has a long instrumental interlude in the middle. Messina did a mandolin solo while another band member played a flute or recorder. The interlude included some Celtic-sounding music.
We didn’t recognize the next song but it sounded very bluesy with Messina singing lead. The line “Walking on out the door” was featured prominently along with piano playing by Gabe Dixon. The circular screen showed traveling through a tunnel and simulated stars made up the background of the stage. The music turned to more upbeat Blues (an oxymoron?) featuring the lyric “Give her the best that you got”. It showed down toward the end and then went right into the next song, the mellow and soulful “Have a little Peace of Mind.” This song featured one of the two saxophone players. Towards the end, Loggins put down his guitar, picked up the microphone, and sang loudly and soulfully. The audience really got into it and gave him a standing ovation by the end.
The next song, “Angry Eyes” was more rockin’. It featured another long sax solo, an impressive guitar solo by Messina, and then the sax player and Messina together. Red and blue lights shined on the stage and there was a flute or electric recorder solo. The circular screen showed landscape. Before the next song they introduced the band. This song featured both saxophone players. It was a loud Blues song that featured the lyric “You need a man.” The circular screen showed a slow dancing figure. It also showed images of Loggins and Messina when they were much younger and had very long hair. Loggins also had a long beard. The present Loggins said something like “Come on, we all had long hair.” There was also loud percussion and keyboards. One sax player did a solo and then the other did one. They played together and seemed to be trying to outdo each other. I believe Loggins said their names were Big Jim Wheeler and Steve Nieves. Towards the end Messina and the bassist played together. Red and yellow lights shone on stage. When they finished they said, “Thank you. You have been great.” And they left the stage. It was 9:50 pm.
Along with the crowd, we cheered for two minutes before they all returned to the stage to even louder cheers. The first song of the encore began with just Loggins playing. It was the raucous song about sailing “Vahevala”. The rest of the band soon joined in and Gabe Dixon played steel drums at one point. It had a long instrumental part and this time Loggins played the guitar solo. As they played, I noticed that the spotlights above the stage looked a bit like palm trees. They then played the more raucous “Your Mama don’t Dance” that brought everyone to their feet. They added an extended instrumental part and the circular screen showed old people dancing, in contrast to the song. I couldn’t see who said the part “Get out of the car, Long Hair!”
They left the stage and we cheered them back on. They did one more song, “Nobody but You”, a fast number, as yellow lights shone on stage. After they finished the song all the member of the band gathered in front of the stage and bowed. As they left to loud applause and cheering some of them shook hands with the closer member of the audience. It was 10:10 pm. A few people had stated leaving during the final song. It was crowded walking out of the venue passed the merch table. Once outside there was a long queue waiting to board the Dine and Ride shuttle vans. We had to wait for a van to fill and leave before we could board one. A blond man in a Dine and Ride shirt reassured us that more vans were coming. His voice sounded like that of Mark who I had called to ask about valet parking many hours before. We boarded a full shuttle and sat in the back seat. The driver was different from before. The van drove south on Vermont Avenue. Some of the other riders seemed disappointed that Loggins and Messina didn’t do any later popular Kenny Loggins songs such as “Celebrate Me Home”. I wasn’t disappointed. One rider also mentioned wanting to see the new musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, conduct. The L.A. Downtown News has since made his name the root of the words “Dudamania”, “Dudameloriffic”, and “Dudanomics”.
The van dropped off most of the other riders at the Dresden restaurant on Vermont Ave. It dropped off everyone else except us at a restaurant further south on Hillhurst and then drove north to drop us off at the Palace. It was 10:40 pm. We thought about taking the exact route back that we took to get there but we couldn’t easily turn to go south on Hillhurst. Turning left out of the parking lot was difficult and what looked like an exit onto Ambrose was blocked by a chain. We turned right to drive north on Hillhurst, turned right on Avocado, and right on Commonwealth to get back to the reverse route home: left (east) on Franklin, left (northeast) on St. George, right (southeast) on Griffith Park, left (north) on Hyperion, right (east) Rowena that turns into Glendale Ave, left on Fletcher Driver at a very confusing intersection and finally, onto the 2 freeway north.
From the 2 we got onto the 134 east that turned into the 210. But then traffic got very slow. At some distant point, two of the three lanes were closed for road work but the signs didn’t way at what point. The left lanes were very slow. The right lanes were faster but at some point they would be closed. It took what seemed like a long and frustrating time. Eventually we got to where the road work was taking place near the 605. Not until that point did the traffic clear up. We got home at 12:10 am the day after the concert.
Despite the commute home we enjoyed the concert very much. It made me see Kenny Loggins as more than a just a pop star on 80’s film soundtracks and Messina as more than a sidekick but rather a full partner in a duo and an excellent musician. He could sing well, too, even if his voice isn’t as well-known as that of Loggins and Messina could really play the guitar and mandolin. Both Loggins and Messina are accomplished in many different musical styles all on display at the concert. I didn’t miss Loggins’ later pop hits at all. Now I think I like Loggins and Messina better and now I know that it is possible to have a good concert experience at the Greek Theater thanks to Dine and Ride. We’ll definitely use them for the next time we see a show at the Greek.
You despite some “Traveling Blues” on the way home the “Two of Us” did not have “Angry Eyes”. Thanks to Dine and Ride we were about to “Find (Our) way” to the concert on time.
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