Chickenfoot deserves supergroup status
Middle East, Cambridge, Mass., May 26, 2009
Reviewed by Jeffrey B. Remz
The word supergroup often is tossed about without justification. In the case of Chickenfoot, the noun is appropriate especially considering it consists of vocalist Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony of Van Halen, drummer Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and guitarist extraordinaire Joe Satriani.
And the band, nearing the end of their initial U.S. tour with an album just about to drop in early June, showed they are not doing it because they are down on their luck. Far from it. This comes off as a hard rocking, bluesy oriented band side project based on a love of the music. As Smith said in an interview with the Boston Globe, these guys are rich, so they are not in it for the money.
In other words, they were not punching the clock, and, in fact, in un-rock star like fashion, even came on stage a bit earlier than advertised.
Of course, they played their self-titled debut plus unrecorded material (Hagar said they had recorded two hours of music). The songs tended to rock pretty hard with Led Zeppelin a reference point, at least on the blues-based songs. They did not short change them either as they often played out for awhile, without endless jamming and not gratuitously either. They also changed up tempos to keep it interesting.
Hagar was strong vocally, easily tackling rock or blues, fast or slow. He often raised his hands above his hand for further encouragement of the crowd, not that they needed all that much at all to get into the music. He was a solid front man. While he joked at one point that the room may have been smaller than his hotel room (it well could have been), he also made it clear he was happy to be playing a club apparently in comparison to some huge arena.
Anthony often lent backing vocals and was active throughout. Smith was sure handed, very steady behind the drums, establishing a solid beat time and again. Satriani is a guitar god in his own right, and as part of a group, he was no different. He often spiced the songs with a few vigorous guitar runs and was fortunately low on theatrics.
As for the songs themselves, they tended to stand up very well, starting with Avenida Revolution, the lead-off track on the disc. The single Oh Yeah had some serious rock hooks. Turning Left rocked pretty hard.
The encore reached back into the past with Anthony asking the crowd if they knew what the first song Hagar ever wrote. With that, they kicked into Montrose's Bad Motor Scooter and a scorching cover of Deep Purple's Highway Star, closing out the 110-minute show with a big shout out to the crowd.
There was no rock star posing the entire night (unless you consider that Hagar and Satriani donned shades for the entire evening). All four clearly were into it and most appreciative of the crowd - the venue, the smallest they played during their short 9-date tour, holds about 600 people.
Yes, Chickenfoot is a supergroup, deservedly so.
