ugen
By HOWARD WITT
I think I can safely say I am one of
the few people on this earth who
ttended both President Shapiro's
Inaugural Ball and Ted Nugent's
powerful gall
I know I am the only human being
i'ho liked both.
Now that's not to say I adored the
Tommy Dorsey Orchestra at Thursday
night's cotillion, or relished the Wango
Tango Band at Friday night's orgy.
Rather, I liked both spectacles and
enjoyed watching the participants. And
I even liked some of the music.
To say the two audiences were
different is to say Shapiro will never
catch Cat Scratch Fever-both are
understatements. Where the "student
leaders" who dominated the ball
fastidiously suppressed their baser
natures under business suits and ball
gowns, the Motor City misfits revelled
in feral, primordial ecstasy, their
large-handled plastic combs protruding
from the right rear pockets of their
jeans.
I BEGAN TO suspect that Nugent's
audience was not the tea-for-two type
as I was walking down Hoover toward
Crisler Arena and souped-up Camaros
roared past in regal procession. My
suspicions were confirmed as I took my
seat on the main floor and firecrackers
started exploding around me.
The society-types at the Inaugural
Ball would probably describe Nugent's
audience as "ruffian." I might go a
little further. High school boys, most of
whom are probably on the six-year
graduation plan, predominated, and a
peppering of assorted hoodlums spiced
things up. Everyone seemed to have a
bong or pipe in the left hand and a bic
lighter in the right.
As I adjusted my wax earplugs (an
absolute necessity when you are sitting
,I25 yards from 100 megawatts of
speakers), the warm-up band started.
The only thing really memorable about
the group'-"Road Master"-was the
lead singer's propensity for tossing
various mementoes to the screaming
throngs in . front of him. A towel
drenched with sweat from his face and
chest (bared to the navel but without
even three hairs) and a tambourine
were the hottest items for which
the crowd scrambled.
The Michigan Daily-Sunday, April 20, 1980--Page 7
it: A survivor's saga
roq
-CINEMA II-
PRESENTS
p ~BELLE DE JOUR /
(LUIS BUNUEL, 1968)
The luminous CATHERINE DENEUVE plays Severine, the sexually unfulfilled
wife of a gentle doctor in this elegant drama of erotic obsession by a master
of the genre, Luis Bunuel. Severine finds diversion and a certain satisfaction
working afternoons as "Belle de Jour," a prostitute in a brothel. When she
refuses to run away with one of her clients, he shoots and paralyzes her
husband, revealingsome chilling implications about the source of Severine's
pleasures. (100 min.) French with subtitles.
ANGELL HALL 7&9 $1.50
r
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After the warm-up group left and
before the Wangos tangoed onstage, a
virtual Star Wars broke out in the
arena. Frisbees, hurtled with vicious
delight, crashed into frenzied rowdies.
It was like a war zone in more ways
than one-most of the hurtlers will be
registering for the draft in a fewweeks.
AND THEN, THE moment for which
we had all been waiting arrived. Clad
only in a loin-cloth (incidentally, he
doesn't have any chest hairs, either),
the Tarzan king of Gonzo swung
onstage from a rope suspended from
the rafters: There he was, in all his
leering, demonic glory-Ted Nigent.
"Are you ready to rock tonight?" he
screeched into the microphone, to the
orgasmic delight of the writhing
delinquents below him. Nugent's
speaking voice is high, almost whiny;
he talks only at the end of every
exhalation.
"I am the official Michigan
representative of rock and roll," he
rasped with joy.
"Me and my roadies would go over to
Iran and turn it into a parking lot in a
couple of minutes," he squealed,
touching a patriotic chord in the all-
American audience.
Of course, the masses did not come to
hear Nugent's inspired rhetoric. They
came for the heavy metal rock of
"Motor City Madhouse," "Get Ready,"
"Wango Tango," and "Cat Scratch
Fever." And I guess you could say
Nugent delivered. The only problem
was, I couldn't tell one song from the
next.
There comes a musical threshold
when the strumming of a few guitars
and the beating of a few drums,
cranked up to deafening levels, sounds
like one pounding mess. Two hours of
that without earplugs must be
excruciating. With earplugs, it's just
plain tedious.
BUT THE AUDIENCE liked it. In
fact, the sea of blue denim swayed and
strummed imaginary guitars along
with its Messiah.
In all honesty, however, the idolatry
seemed quite unreflecting and
uncreative. From the moment Nugent
swung onstage to the moment he
pranced off, the floor audience stood on
chairs. At times you could feel the
hesitation and expectancy in the air as
a few fans sat down and others
considered doing the same. But then
Nugent would groan and send a stream
of saliva across the stage, and everyone
would jump up again.
It's hard to show growing excitement
when you've been standing on your
chair with your fist thrust in the air
since the first song.
I first heard of Ted Nugent two years
ago, when I read an article about him in
Rolling Stone. About the only detail that
stuck in my mind from that story was
Nugent's obsession with guns and bows
and arrows. Nugent is a hunter. He
teases his audience like he teases his
prey.
NUGENT, THE ROCK journals tell
us,, does not use drugs or drink alcohol.
Consequently, one might think he could
be an ideal role model for the doped-out
'teens teetering in front of him. Until he
starts to talk.
"Fuck" is his standard verb, noun,
and adjective. "You're a
motherfucker," he whines. "Stupid
fucker," he grunts.
Indeed, he is wonderfully colloquial.
Picking up the feline imagery from
"Cat Scratch Fever," he mock-sobs,
"My heart started to break when I
realized I couldn't eat all that sweet
Michigan pussy out there." The
audience cheers. "But I'm sure gonna
try," headds.
One youngboy standing next to me
noticed my notebook. I told him I was
reviewing the concert. "I hope you're
not going to write anything bad in
there," he smiled. "How could I?" I
answered.
l.
i
I
1
Friday: PLANET OF THE APES plus BEDTIME FOR BONZO (with Ronald
Reagan) aturda : FROM HERE TO ETERNITY
auwuyir omri msmm lT
I
J.B. Robinson Jewelers
congratulates all 1980 graduates
with a 20% (twenty percent) savings on
merchandise at the Briarwood Mall, Ann
Arbor' store and the Twelve Oaks Mall
Novi store, upon presentation of this
coupon and your student ID. Present
layaways, sale merchandise and repairs
excluded. Offer expires May 4, 1980.
Congratulations and Sincere Best Wishes,
Larry J.B. Robinson
Jb ROBINSON JEWELERS
Daily Photo by JOHN HAGEN
THE EXUBERANT TED NUGENT swung into Crisler Arena Friday night
with a host of Detroit-area fans following closely behind. His alluring loin-
cloth displayed his hairless, winter-white skin to full advantage.
Linda's new wave a
punk pose
By ERIC ZORN
The "new" Linda Ronstadt, who
really isn't so new, was equal to the job
of performing in Detroit's Joe Louis
Despite a pesky cold, Ronstadt sang
with her characteristically penetrating
voice and was often able to make
herself understood, though each note
echoed off acres of bare concrete and
steel, running into the following note
and then the next. Jaded Ann Arborites
complain about poor acoustics at
Crisler Arena, but the Joe Louis Arena
rivals only Pontiac's Silverdome as the
most wretched performing hall in the
area.
ALAS, WHEN we're talking big name
-recording stars, we're talking about
economics and not necessarily art. All
the high-powered loud speakers pointed
in every which direction cannot
disguise the fact that most rock
concerts are played in canaverous
chambers better suited for this year's
yodeling championship than music.
Aart from the aesthetic drawbacks
of these concert conditions, the garbled
quality of much of the sound makes it
all but impossible to appreciate new
material and new artists. Unknown
lyrics are absolutely unintelligible, and
instrumental virtuoisty is often lost in
the audio jumble.
Ronstadt, for all the clarity and
power of her voice, still sounded at
Ftimes as if she were singing into, a
wastepaper basket. Fortunately she
sprinkled a generous serving of
familiar favorites into her 25-song, 2-
hour performance, and even slowed the
tempo of some of the cuts from Mad
RESUMES
Love, her latest album, so that sharp
listeners might understand the songs
without having previously had the
lyrics etched into their brains.
Since Ronstadt has moved further
and further into rock and away from
country-western lately, some of the
throwback songs ("Silver Threads And
Golden Needles," "I Can't Help It If
I'm Still In Love With You") seemed
out of place indeed. Her new punky pose
and sassy, roaring approach to music
calls fora ferocious stage presence that
becomes exciting through its sheer
relentless energy.
But only at the very close of the
concert did she come anywhere close to
shifting into high gear, sweeping
through a prolonged "You're No
Good," and rip-snorting versions of
"Living in the USA" and her current
hit, "How DoI Make You."
OTHERWISE, HER appearance
belied her performance, Ronstadt,
shorn hair and trendy outfit wholly
unflattering, simply couldn't pull off
the new-wavey female rocker role. She
has traded on her image as a rock sex-
symbol in the past, but now she's
renounced that and put something not
half as convincing there in its place.
When she strut-dances back and forth
across the stage, it looks forced (even
from a distance), and only seldom does
she convery through her physical
presence any indication that she's
really excited about singing. Even the
notoriously raucous Detroit rock-and-
roll crowd didn't get very excited,
which is a ,shame, because excitement
is the sort of reaction Ronstadt OUGHT
to get if she's not going to go for the
lovesick yelps.
Overall, there is something not quite
right about Ronstadt's recent
punkiness. Her music is still great, and
her voice unmatched by other female
vocalists, but the new pose just isn't
justified. She's rocking more, crooning
less, and taking great advantage of
both the range and energy in her voice;
but she just doesn't have it in her to
become a true rock and roller.
IN THE FIRST place, as a singer of
other people's songs, she lacks the
proper artistic spirit. In the second
place, her strengths and appeal lie in
entirely different musical areas., She's
not a fake (Rolling Stone magazine
critics say that each cut on Mad Love
sounds like the thirtieth take, but that's
a malicious and unfounded remark, as
Ronstadt's band proved on Friday
night), but she is kind of a misguided
fool.
Therefore, her concert wasn't bad, it
was just peculiar. The music, sharp and
strong, almost transcended the
inherent acoustical flaws of Joe Louis
Gymnasium, but the "show," that is to
say the entire feel of the performance,
left a lot to be desired.
+ he
is preserved on
The Michigan Daily
420 Maynard Street
AND
Graduate Library
Ann Arbor Civic ballet Silver Anniversary Precents
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