Concert review: The Yardbirds in L.A.

Playing fast and loose, the Yardbirds rolled into L.A. with their latest crop of talented young musicians. An audience that started out waiting to be impressed ended up cheering and howling its approval of the still potent U.K. band.

No mere oldies act, the group sometimes bill themselves as the Most Blueswailing Yardbirds. For good reason: After almost a half century, they remain terrific (rock) interpreters of the U.S. blues masters.

The set list from the Canyon Club (in L.A.’s west Valley) included Bob Diddley’s “I’m a Man,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” and Eddie Boyd’s “Five Long Years,” all Yardbirds’ showstoppers since the mid-’60s. The band’s own “New York City Blues” and “The Nazz Are Blue” fit right in there with the American classics.

(Photos by Arnie Goodman. They are of an earlier tour stop in New York.)

Two original Yardbirds remain, the rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja and drummer Jim McCarty, both sizable contributors to the original sound. (For example, both receive songwriting credit on most of the album that came to be called “Roger the Engineer,” the group’s best studio album.) They’ve been reviving the Yardbirds on and off for 20 years, since the band made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Dreja and McCarty didn’t stray from the canon, even though they’ve recorded several well-received albums over the years.

The crowd expected the hits and key album tracks, and got them: “Heart Full of Soul,” “For Your Love,” “Over, Under, Sideways, Down,” “Shapes of Things” and “Mister You’re a Better Man Than I.”

The Yardbirds often are credited with creating the first psychedelic record, “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago.” (It’s number 10 on our list of the Best Psychedelic Singles.) That Beck-Page workout blew a few minds at the show. The band thoughtfully threw in the trippy studio chatter from the record, delighting the hardcores.

Filling out the Yardbirds lineup are the guitarist Ben King and two relatively new members (2009), singer/harmonica player Andy Mitchell and bassist David Smale.

King has the monumental task of following the Yardbirds’ 1960s godhead of guitarists — Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. (Beck’s been known to pop up at Yardbirds’ gig or two, but no dice this night.)

King did yeoman’s work on most of the numbers, but kicked into high gear for the Page songs: “Little Games” and the original “Dazed and Confused.” Drummer McCarty pointed out that although Page had gone on to play “Dazed” with “some other group,” well, they did it first. (The song was titled “I’m So Confused” back in ’68.)

Singer Mitchell wisely didn’t try to imitate original singer Keith Relf, but on harmonica he sounded uncannily like the late rock star. Mitchell drew cheers several times, including one bit where he finished a song singing quite audibly without the help of a microphone. He delivered all the humor and cock-rock attitude needed for a smoking “The Train Kept A-Rollin.’ ”

Bass player Smale hit the walloping turnaround bottom notes and flourishes that were a key part of the band’s original sound — much like the Animals, the Yardbirds built some of their best songs around an infectious bass-line. The young man has the 1960s heavy bass thing down to an art.

Keith Relf often said that no one ever captured the real Yardbirds on record — the live performances were everything. Good to see tradition carry on.

Yardbirds wing it back to the States

The rave-up keeps on rolling as the Yardbirds kick off a U.S. tour on Sept. 1.

Playing mostly clubs and small auditoriums, the trail-blazing British rock band will spend most of the month in the States.

If shows of the past few years are an indication, the Yardbirds set list should include the psychedelic touchstones “Happenings 10 Years Time Ago,” “Shapes of Things,” “Dazed and Confused,” “The Nazz Are Blue” and “Still I’m Sad.”

“Happenings 10 Years Time Ago” (1966) is widely considered the first psychedelic rocker. It ranks No. 10 on this web site’s list of the Top 100 Psychedelic Songs.

The Yardbirds’ signature sound is the “rave-up,” explained by rock critic Parke Puterbaugh thusly: “A kind of free-for-all where you jam long and hard, not as soloists, but in a tandem, until you reach an epiphany about 10 or 20 or 30 minutes later, a shuddering climax of decibels and pure energy.”

The Yardbirds lineup for the U.S. tour appears to be Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja, the original group’s drummer and rhythm guitarist, along with Ben King, lead guitar, Andy Mitchell, lead vocals/harmonica, and David Smale, bass guitar.

Three shows have the Yardbirds sharing the stage with the Spencer Davis Group.

The Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Former guitarists Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page played at the induction, but the first Yardbirds guitar god, Eric Clapton, was MIA that night. Singer Keith Relf died in 1976.

Dreja and McCarty released three studio albums decades after the original bank broke up: “Birdland (2008) under the Yardbirds name, and a pair of 1980s discs with original bassist Paul Samuel-Smith using the name Box of Frogs. Beck and Page can be heard on a few of the reunion-era songs.

The new Yardbirds’ recent recordings and live shows have been well received by fans and critics. Sundazed released a mono upgrade of the original Yardbirds’ final album, “Little Games,” at the end of last year.

USA Today reviewed a 2007 Yardbirds gig at B.B. King’s club in New York:

The Yardbirds defy the odds by a) boasting a singer who sounds uncannily like the late Keith Relf, only maybe even a bit more versatile; b) continuing to employ hotshot guitarists who, if they don’t completely measure up to the standards of Clapton, Beck and Page, certainly don’t disgrace it; and c) playing with a solid approximation of the fire and desire of the original band.

That performance was recorded for the CD “Live At B.B. King Blues Club.”

Here are the U.S. tour dates as listed on the band’s site:

Sept. 1: City Block in Springfield, Mass. (free)
Sept. 2: Infinity Music Hall in Norfolk, Ct.
Sept. 3: Tupelo Music Hall in White River Junction Vt.
Sept. 4: Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry, NH.
Sept. 5: Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Ct.
Sept. 7: B.B. King’s Blues Club in Manhattan
Sept. 8: Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe, Penn. (with Spencer Davis)
Sept. 9: Capitol One Bank Theater in Westbury, N.Y. (with Spencer Davis and Dave Mason)
Sept. 10: Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center,
Rockville, Md. (with Spencer Davis)
Sept. 11: Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis, Md.
Sept. 16-17: Hawaiian dates not yet set.
Sept. 21: Key Club on Sunset Strip, West Hollywood, Calif.
Sept. 22: The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Sept. 23: The Canyon in Agoura Hills Calif.

Check the Yardbirds concerts page for updates.

No. 10: Happenings 10 Years Time Ago

From the intersection of freak out and rave up comes the Yardbirds’ massive “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago,” often cited as the first psychedelic rock song.

The slash-and-burn number featured the Yardbirds’ ephemeral duo-guitar attack of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Recorded in July of 1966, the song seemingly touched every other rock musician who mattered for the rest of the decade, notably Jimi Hendrix.

“Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” anticipated acid rock, punk and heavy metal. Nothing like it had ever been recorded — with the possible exception of Love’s frantic “7 and 7 Is,” cut in the same month.

“Happenings” begins innocently enough, with a bit of the raga-influenced guitar that the Yardbirds favored that year. A propulsive run down the guitar neck sparks the sonic storm. Singer Keith Relf sounds dazed and confused as he tries to sort out a waking dream, a serious case of deja vu or perhaps an acid flashback:

Meeting people on my way
Seemingly I’ve known one day
Familiarity of things
That my dreaming always brings

When the Yardbirds’ signature rave-up comes, it’s the sound of chaos, of Vishnu at work, an eerily accurate sonic representation of a bad trip.

As Telecaster masters Beck and Page shred their ways through the instrumental break, we hear a European police siren wailing in and out. There’s an explosion or two and a distant Cockney voice shaming: “Pop group, are you? You should get your hair cut!”

Yardbirds member Chris Dreja recalls it as a “miniature rock opera.” Hendrix reportedly told Beck that the number inspired his “Third Stone From the Sun.”

The song came out as a single a few months after the Yardbirds album now known as “Roger the Engineer” — aka “The Yardbirds” and “Over Under Sideways Down.” It enjoyed modest success on the charts, the last single to do so for the hitmaking band. (“Happenings” now appears as a track on “Roger the Engineer.”)

In the U.K., the “Happenings” flip side had “Psycho Daisies,” a forgettable Jeff Beck song in which he sings about his actress girlfriend. In America, the ballsy bluesy “The Nazz Are Blue” lit up the B side, making for a powerhouse 45. (Young Todd Rundgren named his pop band after “Nazz.” )

Jeff Beck was on his way out of the British rock band, while Jimmy Page made his move from bass to guitar. The bass player on the session was future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and indeed “Happenings” brings to mind that future rock institution. (Led Zeppelin toured briefly under the name the New Yardbirds.)

The Yardbirds reunion group included the psychedelic blowout on the 2003 album “Birdland.” Rundgren went on to record a note-perfect version of “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” and, of course, the myriad covers keep on rolling.

This Yardbirds video shows the band with Jimmy Page on bass. Jeff Beck frequently missed gigs, although he may no longer have been the band at the time. (View more Yardbirds videos)

Further reading:
The Book of Seth on “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” single
Jeff Beck: The Early Years (Fanzine)