Return-path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Full-name: FMY FL Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 21:45:24 EST Subject: David Crosby-CPR concert (VLJC) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: AOL 8.0 for Windows US sub 230 X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative by demime 0.97c X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
Sorry Joni-only people, this should have been NJC, but I thought since so many of you are fans of CSN&Y, you might be interested. My apologies if you're not. I was hoping my best friend and fellow JMDLer David Mingus was going to report on this first, but after the CPR concert, he's very disillusioned with David Crosby. Maybe he might add comments to my thoughts. Mingus knew the owner of the club where CPR was performing this past Saturday night, so our little group was not only given a front row table that butted against the stage, but we were allowed to show up at 4:00 when Crosby was arriving for the sound check. Both of us have been long time fans of Crosby, as most of you are. We were told by the owner of the club that there would be plenty of time to ask him questions and take photos. We did our research, and read and reread Wally B.'s interview with Crosby from '97. We just knew that Crosby respected and loved Joni's work. I must preface the rest of this story by saying that this "bar" was originally a Morrison's Cafeteria many years ago. After being vacant many years, there have been several bars that have come and gone. It is now called Club Neptunes, and the owner has something *different* every night. She has brought in some well known singers i.e. Janis Ian, and next month is Willy Nelson. Some nights the club is for hip hop dancing, and other nights might be some teenie bopper night. This is a very small place. It's more of a dance place, but they do set up tables in front of the stage for concerts. It says that the place holds 700 people, but I think that's really pushing it. After playing in some very nice and much larger venues, I don't think Crosby was very happy about the situation. Have any of you been in a bar in the daytime? Not a pretty sight. So for this, I will partially forgive Mr. Crosby for his *asshole* behavior. We watched and listened as CPR did their sound checks. Crosby definitely had an attitude with the band during practice. I was so surpassed when he treated the guitar player (Jeff Pevar) like crap. He was yelling at him that he wasn't singing loud enough over and over. He told him he might as well not sing at all. (Mingus has this verbal abuse recorded). Crosby soon returned to the bus out back, while the rest of the band continued with the sound check and just hung around. Crosby's fairly newly found son, James Raymond stopped by and chatted with Mingus, autographed his Woodstock poster and CD, and was just as sweet as he could be. (Must have got that from his Mother's side). Ming talked to him about Joni, and he's even visited the JM website before. Jeff Pevar even stopped by and was happy to chat and sign an autograph. We waited for a while for Crosby to return from the bus. Now, it wasn't as if Crosby was surrounded by dozens of fans. The club was closed to everyone except employees, plus Mingus, his nephew, and me. Mingus had a few questions he wanted to ask Crosby, plus he was going to give him one of his photos of Joni and the Travelogue CD. (I know, I know..........many artists wouldn't want to be approached with a gift recording from another artist, but we truly thought Crosby thought so highly of Joni). Ming introduced himself saying he was a big fan of his and he thanked him for *discovering* Joni and helping her with her career. He told Crosby that "Dawntreader" was getting rave reviews from her fans on T'log, and he presented him with his gifts (which Crosby received unceremoniously and quickly handed over to someone else). Mingus asked him if he could ask him a few questions, and Crosby said "Nah, I don't think so". It wasn't as if Ming was going to ask him only questions about Joni, but Crosby was pretty rude in my opinion. I was very intimidated, and as a certain jmdler told me last week "Crosby is not very approachable"...........but I thought the hell with it, I've been here all afternoon, so I'm going to at least introduce myself and thank him for what he's done for the music industry. Regretfully, I did. I said " Hi Mr. Crosby, I'm Jimmy Stewart and I want to thank you for all you've done for music". You'd have thought I was going to steal his wallet. He reluctantly shook my hand, and said a half assed thanks. Now for the good part. The concert started around 10:00. (the opening act was a girl named Twinkle Yochim (Paz you have to check her out......she has a FANTASTIC voice). Anyway, CPR came on and the SRO crowd went wild. Crosby quickly announced that this was not David Crosby, but CPR. This is where I was really shocked. I had not heard CPR before. They were awesome!!!! They played about 2 thirds of their music, and the rest was CSN songs. I was amazed that David still has such a great voice. When they sang any of the CSN songs, it was just like old times. Crosby, Pevar, and Raymond harmonized remarkably, and the crowd went wild. James Raymond has such a wonderful voice, and definitely inherited his dad's musical talents. Jeff Pevar really rocked on the guitar, and they all really seemed to enjoy themselves on stage. You could really tell how proud Crosby was of James. He smiled at him several times. This really helped all the negative feelings I had earlier in the day. The crowd was really appreciative, and I think Crosby was enjoying himself. He didn't talk too much, but at one point he was amusing when he was having to pull his pants up. He said "That's the problem when you're shaped like an avocado" I really enjoyed this concert, especially sitting 10 feet away. I got some great photos of Crosby & Pevar. Unfortunately, I didn't get many photos of his son James because his organ was in the way (no not that organ :~) )...........but all in all it was a fantastic concert. Who knows? Maybe Crosby was having a bad day earlier. I'd like to think so, but he was still a butthead! reporting from Ft. Myers, FL Jimmy
