By Lisa Burke
December 31st 2015, The Whisky-A-Go-Go, West Hollywood CA: On the last day of 2015, with the many options of rock and metal shows available to me, I chose to see Dick Dale, also known as the king of the surf guitar, play a very energetic set and count down to the new year at Whisky-A-Go-Go.
Lately I feel there have been some great headlining acts at Whisky, yet the openers often have no relation in genre or style to the headliners and with the whole pay-to-play system they run there, sometimes you find that anyone with money and an instrument can wind up on that stage. I am not knocking any of the bands on this evening however, as I only caught the tail end of the band prior to Dick Dale and they were fun although a strange fit. I went specifically to see Dick Dale on this occasion and didn’t want openers to cloud my experience of his performance as has happened to me in the past with others at this venue due to the simple reason that they schizophrenicly choose openers and too many mixed genres in the same evening can become muddy and often brings in the wrong vibe to set the mood for the headlining act.
As the anticipation for Dick Dale and for 2016 rose, the track from The Zombies ‘Time Of The Season’ comes through the speakers as an appropriate precurser to Dick Dale’s abrupt arrival to the stage as it comes from his reigning era and is about the summer of love which segways into surf guitar nicely of course, or not, so midway through it gets cut off by Dick Dale’s commanding entry which set the bar perfectly for what was about to come. Having never seen him perform before and the fact that this man is seventy-eight years old and very energetic and good-spirited perhaps due to years of making health conscious choices which included sobriety, martial arts, and kicking cancer in the ass, I was very impressed. His band mates and guests were all solid as well, and I was particularly mindful of how fun and energetic the drumming was. Dick Dale did make some Keith Moon reference in his commentary at one point for one reason or another, but I was too busy being blown away by his guitar stories to follow where he was going with that. While his first album came out in 1962 his modern day claim to fame and the reason people today know of him is his popular track ‘Misirlou’ which was featured in the movie Pulp Fiction and expectedly played on this night amongst a cover of The Animals’ ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ and a post-countdown-to-2016 performance of Auld Lang Syne.
All of his originals to me could totally fit in as movie scores as some do and most all carry a bit of that beach party scene vibe. Interestingly this legendary man was influenced by country with the likes of Hank Williams and what today’s society may or may not realize is that Jimi Hendrix was a comrade to him and perhaps influenced a touch by him when he ran away with the idea of what I like to refer to as guitar stories. It’s a beautiful concept to me where the language of the guitar outspeaks any of the lyrics and creates a clear and fluid vision in the listeners mind. In Dick Dale’s case he created the surf and waves in people’s minds among other images, and to me it all has an overindulgence of action sequences ranging from a simple surf ride to a drive-by shooting ending in a hail of flying bullets. That’s why it works in film because it tells a story with the music and sets the mood and helps to enhance the scene. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again a seventy-eight year old man who has been performing and playing guitar among other instruments for over fifty five years and has a bit of old man weight to carry may not be in tip top shape as a vocalist but all that experience wasn’t under his belt in the sixties and that makes this performance extra special and extra good. Also, Dale is unique in that he is a left-handed guitar player even though he shares this trait with his late friend Jimi who he covers a song or two of sometimes. Instead of restringing the guitar like Jimi would do he will actually play it with the strings upside down which I can’t imagine is an easy feat to teach yourself, yet any man who can break any amplifier until he customizes his own probably has the drive to accomplish anything. I’m glad I chose to see this legend and inspiration to all that is Dick Dale as my last show of 2015 and my first show of 2016 because now I can boast that I haven’t seen a bad show all year.