B.B. King's, Universal
City
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7&7 Is |
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Photos by: The New Guy
"Buddy Miles? Buddy Miles owes me a $150! You tell Buddy Miles I ain't gettin' off the stage til he pays me my money! Fuck Buddy Miles! I don't care if his fat ass is in a wheelchair. Nobody wants to hear those tired old Band of Gypsys tunes. Somebody tell Buddy Miles that Jimi Hendrix is dead!"
You gotta love it. When you hire Arthur Lee to headline a show, don't expect him to cut his set short for anybody! Arthur was very displeased at having to wait around for two hours of boring opening acts. And he did a very good job of coping with the terrible sound system. But just as the show was finally building up some momentum he was rudely ejected from the stage, much to the displeasure of the crowd. When some jive announcer came on and tried to get the crowd to chant "Buddy Miles! Buddy Miles!" the crowd responded with "Arthur Lee! Arthur Lee!"
Anyway the tension made for good rock and roll. At least when you go to an Arthur Lee show you know that he's NOT going to give you some safe predictable evening. Arthur always speaks his mind.
To Buddy's credit, the half of the crowd that didn't leave after Arthur's show did respond quite vocally to his three song set of "Who Knows", "Little Wing" and "Them Changes." And Buddy did take the high road by giving a little bit of praise to Arthur.
Arthur's setlist was (in approximate order as best I can remember)
7&7 Is
Signed D.C.
Live & Let Live
Orange Skies
Bummer In the Summer
And More Again
Little Red Book
You Set The Scene
Between Clark & Hilldale (that's when he starting getting "cut" messages
from security)
Everybody's Got To Live (after which several beefy bouncers surrounded him and rudely
stopped the show)
Arthur attempted to start "Singing Cowboy" but it never happened.
The whole evening was disorganized and rather unpleasant as far as I was concerned. The opening acts played far too long, especially Leon Hendrix. Arthur had every right to be pissed when he finally took the stage around midnight. But as I said, he was handling it quite well and the crowd was clearly enjoying his set before it was so rudely interrupted.
jazmann
The guy in the black sleeveless teeshirt is the guy who started it ; the black guy in the other picture is the guy who kept whispering into Arthur's ear.