10cc in Thousand Oaks

Spotify playlist: http://bit.ly/46h9uze

1

Which is half an hour away. At least. A totally different mind-set. I'm sure there are people living in Thousand Oaks commuting to L.A., but not many, it's just too far.

And just too far for the rock aficionados, the business honchos, the lifers, to drive out for a gig. This is more akin to your local PAC than the Greek, never mind the United Theater, where the band played last time.

Well, who was coming?

That is always the question. 10cc had a few hits back in the seventies, but that's fifty years ago. Is that enough to get people out to see them?

Not a full house.

But those who were there...

2

I just couldn't understand the rapturous reception. The standing ovations. It's one thing to clap for "I'm Not in Love" or "The Things We Do For Love," but they were applauding non-hits with vigor. Who were these people?

Well, it's California so everybody is casually dressed. Like they just came from the beach, or a picnic. And they were old. Then again, so am I.

How many of these people had purchased those 10cc albums and salivated over them?

I loved, loved, LOVED the first LP with "Rubber Bullets," but until I moved to L.A. I didn't know another person who'd bought it. You'd read about it in the rock press, that's how I found out about it, but there was no radio play, the way you reached customers back in the day.

The second album?

FM rock played "Wall Street Shuffle." A little bit. No more.

The third album, "The Original Soundtrack"? Not as good as what came before, but it contained the aforementioned legendary hit, "I'm Not in Love."

The follow-up, "How Dare You!," had even less penetration in America than the first two albums.

Then the band split in half. There was 1977's giant hit "The Things We Do For Love," and then the band was essentially done.

Well, close to it anyway. "Dreadlock Holiday" was a hit everywhere but the U.S.

10cc didn't come up in conversation. They were a private luxury, for those in the know. Who knew Graham Gouldman had written those Yardbirds and Herman's Hermits hits and Eric Stewart had sung "Groovy Kind of Love" and...

This was not the bombast of seventies AOR. The thing about 10cc was they had a sense of humor, with a dash of intelligence thrown in. They weren't brain dead and nor where their fans. But where does that leave you in the world of rock and roll? Fans were passionate about the music, but not the band, they didn't get tattoos of 10cc, it was only about the music.

As it was Friday night.

3

Now if you're of a certain vintage you remember when everybody bought a guitar and there were battles of the bands... This was as mainstream as today's influencer culture. And unlike so much of today's music, you had to be able to play or it didn't work. There were no tape loops, never mind hard drives. Either you could play or you couldn't. There was no auto-tune, if you didn't have a great voice you had to be a phenomenal lyricist, and oftentimes that still wasn't enough.

The band took the stage, and that was it.

As it was Friday night.

There was a row of amps and guitars, and that was it. No backdrop, no video, no special effects, NO HARD DRIVES!

There was only one prerecorded moment, that breathy vocal "Big boys don't cry" in "I'm Not in Love," otherwise what you saw was what you got, LITERALLY!

And that was a revelation. Far from today's world. Because there were no TRAPPINGS!

Forget production, there were no fancy outfits, just people playing music.

And that's when I realized my perspective had changed. The musicians, the bands, used to be gods. Now I know they're just regular people. They used to be seen as rich, living a glamorous lifestyle. Now there are tons of people richer than musicians, and not every musician is rolling in dough. You're putting on a show. That's it. After doing a post mortem with Graham he told me he had to go, they had an early wake-up call. Sound glamorous? An endless string of one-nighters for a modicum of pay at this age? You've got to love it, because that's all there is...the aura, it's gone.

4

Now the one thing about the band on Friday night was they were TIGHT! I mean IMPOSSIBLY tight. It was positively astounding. Like they'd rehearsed to the nth degree, or maybe in this case have done the same show so many times they're a well-oiled machine.

Now you can turn up the amps and create a wash of sound that covers up your mistakes, but that was not what was happening, not at all. They were playing the music, faithfully, all these years later. But with the ensuing years, some of the lyrics gained new meaning. Or maybe it was already there and I just uncovered the wisdom.

Like in "Art for Art's Sake."

"Money for God's sake," I know, I know, but...

"Gimme a silver, gimme a gold
Make it a million, for when I get old"

Wow, that's what all these musicians are living on... THEIR PUBLISHING ROYALTIES! Which is why they're being sold for millions. Their hit days are way behind them. They're living on the past, if not in the past. All those credits? Ownership? Done on somewhat of a whim back then, absolutely crucial today.

"Keep me in exile the rest of my days
Burn me in hell but as long as it pays"

The lyrics are prescient. Forget where I am in the future, as long as I have my ROYALTIES, I'll be okay!

And then there's "The Wall Street Shuffle."

"Oh, Howard Hughes
Did your money make you better"

Forget the platitudes, the truth is life is better with money, but to assume everybody with money is happy is just plain wrong. As a matter of fact, many are not. They were ruthless in accumulation and now have few friends and can trust almost nobody. Never mind those who inherited it and have lived a life of debauchery.

You definitely need a yen to make a mark. It doesn't rain down from the sky willy-nilly. Yet the musicians of yore liked the money, but it was secondary to the tunes and the lifestyle, being in control of your own destiny.

All of this is encased in these 10cc songs. Which were too smart to be hits. Too insightful. Too FUNNY!

5

Now the amazing thing about this show is all the whiz-bang effects you know from the records are replicated on stage. All the percussion hits. It's a fan's dream.

Assuming you're a fan.

Like I said, the applause was astounding. "Feel the Benefit" is a tour-de-force, I can see people appreciating it without knowing it, with its various movements and solos...

But for this level of reaction, for this many people to stand up clapping, you had to know the song.

Or did you?

There was a fiftysomething woman in the row behind me who knew more than the hits, but when I turned around a few songs before the end, she was gone. As were a number of the other attendees.

Now I can understand leaving if you're not into it. Then again, tickets were not so cheap you would go on a whim. What was going on? It certainly wasn't traffic, there is none in Thousand Oaks, and the parking structure is huge and was far from full. Is this the new normal, had they had enough, was it just too late? I'd say they were going home to relieve the babysitter, but this generation's kids were already out of the house. Gray and white hair was rampant.

So they came out, loved it, and then had enough? Like small children, they'd reached their limit?

But the show plowed on.

6

Now I'd seen the show a year ago so it wasn't like it was brand new, but I was dying to hear "Feel the Benefit," and the band delivered. And their a cappella version of "Donna" is a showstopper. But what resonated most Friday night was a song I liked, but never previously loved, "I'm Mandy, Fly Me."

It was a hit in the U.K., was released as a single in the U.S. but if you heard it on the radio, it was probably at three in the morning.

The title says it all. An in joke with sexual connotations. But what truly puts "I'm Mandy, Fly Me" over the top are the various movements, from the intro and throughout it's anything but predictable, you're constantly surprised. And then comes the refrain...

"I'm Mandy, fly me"

It comes around now and again, there is melody, it's uplifting, there's a raw optimism that's absent in so much of today's music, the song starts in the brain and then travels down the body as opposed to so much that begins in the genitalia and just stays there.

You listen to stuff like this and you're on the edge of your seat, waving your arms, conducting the band like an orchestra.

I listened to the new Sabrina Carpenter album. It's pop music, which used to be anathema back in the seventies, the lowest common denominator. But then MTV created a monoculture and Madonna came along and the Top 40 became everything and either you were on it or you weren't. Whereas in the old days you had a vision, you executed it, and sometimes songs crossed over to the hit parade, but it was all about exploration and your statement on wax.

Like 10cc.

7

Who knows if 10cc will ever tour America again. After all, it's a business. And if everybody is not making money, it doesn't happen.

Roxy Music will never be seen on these shores again. They played arenas the last time through, people went, but Live Nation lost too much to do it again.

Never mind the aging of these performers. Graham Gouldman is 79. Spry, with all his marbles, never mind an amazing ability to play the bass, but no one is forever. You do it until you can't. And that day always comes. And then you can see the band no more.

So many of the acts you've already seen. But probably not 10cc, who waited nearly fifty years to come back to America.

If you're a fan of the hits, it's your choice. But if you were a fan of the albums you must go. Because you've got a group of guys loving to play this music and nailing it. And if you played those records in your bedroom or on cassette in your car like I did and you were enraptured by the sound...

You may never get this chance again.


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