Kula Shaker @ the Viper Room

(20 January 1998)

Written by Marty Jackson (thanks a lot!!!!) :-)

From the Thursday night previous that I spotted the cryptic ad in the Weekly showing a smiley moon (?) face and the "K" logo, I was freaking out over this gig, not even sure I could get in, cos it's admission at the door, and there's always a LONG guestlist at this place. Got there and discovered they had put "Kula Shaker" up on the marquee! Great...so much for "secret".
Well, Lisa and I didn't get in line till about 7:30 pm (which I had feared was way too late) but were still the first two at the door!!!!! (it being an over 21 venue surely helped!)
I walked around front - and you could hear a soundcheck was going on inside, but I came back to the door. Soon after, this whole BIG group of smoking friends arrived, so we had perfect timing there.

Around 8 or so, Lisa says "Here they come" and someone in line shouts "See you later tonight" and sure enough Alonza steps up! Tall, skinny and lovely - I was just in shock. A not-skinny girl with short black hair in a black dress seemed to be accompanying him. Paul, I think, was holding hands with this blonde skanky goth-type girl who made me think of Courtney Love - Old Style. A tall, possibly foreign, guy with long black hair was with them - he looked familiar, like those couple pics I've seen of Marcus MacLaine - HE couldn't possibly be managing them now...could he??
Jay was in denim and looked very small, and even smaller bringing up the rear was Crispian who was smoking!!!! I was shocked and appalled. They just raced by, and Lisa said "Marty!!!!" and pushed me to accost them...all I could think to do was to shout after Crispian to put the cigarette out, but I didn't. She tried her darndest to get me to chase them into the parking lot. I wandered up just to see what they were up to, and they were all climbing into a big black car. No one had approached them at all from the time we saw them, and I just couldn't go racing thru the lot alone and shouting after them like an idiot. Their car pulled onto the sidestreet where we were lined up, and turned onto Sunset. Then I stood there going thru "oh my god, they were right there..." aftershock. For the record, this is the third time I've seen Paul outside the venue beforehand, thus three for three!

At 9 o'clock they actually did open up the door and set up those velvet ropes. It looked like they were creating a guest entrance at the expense of us, regular folk, but no! No guest list people were even there yet. Lisa had huddled behind me for warmth, and so for the first time ever I was at the very front of the line for a cool band!!!!
The door guy said "two?" to us and checked our i.d. So then Lisa and I went down the corridor to the guy you pay. $10!!! Can you handle it?! Least I've paid to see them yet! They guy from the door shouted after me did I have a camera - nope! (but dang, I could have had a tape recorder...you're not allowed, but nobody has checked us). Up the stairs we went and got first shot at the stage! My first thought was to go to Alonza's side, but I said "Hey, front and center?" There's a gap between the monitors where it's just stage. And this stage is only thigh-high even on me!!!! It's smaller then my bedroom. The drums are level on the stage, no platform. We each even got a turn to go to the bathroom without anyone else racing up to stake a claim at the stage. In fact, a bouncer made me step back cos the lighting crew were still making adjustments, by blowing all this smoke at the gels...grrrrrrrr!!!

They blasted awful club "music" for hours - it was like a jackhammer in my brain. Pure hell for me. Even though I'd only seen the KS drum kit on stage I put my earplugs in at 10:30 in anticipation of an opening act. There was none, but I wished I'd thought of it sooner - could've blocked out some of that awful club crap.

We couldn't figure out how the band even take the stage, cos there's no door behind it. This girl who had weasled up beside Lisa asked her "What's the name of the lead singer?" Call her Undeserving Girl.

Around midnight Kula Shaker cut a surprising path thru the crowd and stepped past Undeserving Girl to climb up onto the stage. (so that's how it's done! Rather primitive!) All their little legs went right passed my face!!!! On Crispian's effects is a label "Turn it up loud Dodge". His VOX pedal was a max of two feet from me. I could read the numbers on the controls on his guitar. It was the closest ever to having him give me a private performance - just surreal! Crispian Mills, nearly in my face. In fact, a couple of times I feared if he broke a string it would strike me in the face. Watching his solos was like if a friend was showing you how to play something, he was THAT close.

Sucky part, was these blinding yellow lights kept hitting us in the face, so bright that I could see the reflection of the nerves in my eye, like when my eye doc does that one test. During those times all I could see was the scratch plate on Crispian's guitar - that red cross is wearing off.

They might have opened with "Knight of the Town" - it was all too surreal for me to remember. Crispian commented they'd be playing the oldies. I remember singing along with "303" and "Hey Dude" towards the beginning.
Crispian had on a short black leather jacket and tight satiny black pants and new-looking black boots (making his tiny feet look a wee bit bigger) and 2 or 3 times we were treated to a look at the waist band of his jockey shorts!!!! Still has that awful Angie Bowie hedgehog haircut. Beautiful Alonza was in a shirt I've seen in pictures that has flowers on it, and white trousers. Paul was a directly back from me maybe ten feet, and had on what I thought was a green shirt with a pattern of rectangles on it, and athletic shoes, maybe jeans. Jay had on a purple shirt with an artsy pattern repeating and jeans and white sneakers, and his hair was so long he just looked like Jesus. There was barely room for his keyboard set up on that tiny stage.

Crispian said they hadn't played live in five months, so we were going to hear them at their worst. He said it was great to come to London - I wasn't sure was that a joke - and he corrected himself, to come from London to LA. Crispian said they'd been in town recording with RICK RUBIN!!!! And a guy named George Drakoulias and that these two were the hairiest guys in music, and he later had George come up onstage and play tambourine for a couple of numbers. They guy looked like a Hell's Angel and the band seemed very amused by him. They're still doing that inane "hallelujah" thing in "Tattva". At one point Crispian hit himself in the mouth with the microphone.

He asked did we want to hear some new material, cos if we didn't then we'd have a problem. They did "The Sound of Drums" (or is it the" Power of Drums"?) which was 60's enough and ok, and one right after with a line like "You say the Magic has gone" or such - so much for me remembering titles, but I really liked that second one instantly cos it was very Pink Floyd. Otherwise all the oldies. Only non-lp tracks were "Gokula" and the "Om Namah Narayana" mantra.

The band had a lot of communication with their sound guy up above, and Crispian told him "you can just guess what song I'm gonna do next. It rhymes with "sleep" - and yes, it was "Into the Deep". Later he said to Alonza, "Lonz, this one rhymes with "Fart" (!!!!) Yep, "Start all Over". Earlier Crispian said something about being "pooped" and by that time he looked it too. Oh, after he wiped his face on a towel he mentioned there would be "a naked bathing scene" later. He climbed up on the drum kit once, and tried to tip Jay's organ over when Jay himself wasn't even trying, thus knocking his face towel off onto the floor by the monitor (I let Lisa know to grab it as oon as they left!) Although Crispian did have a better sense of balance that night, there was no climbing on the organ. Even though it wasn't on the set list that was taped to the floor, they added "Smart Dogs" towards the end. Lisa remarked that they all had bad teeth. I think "Hush" was the last number before the "encore".
Crispian said they weren't allowed to leave the stage then come back, so they were gonna leave and never come back. So there was no physical break before their encore of "Gokula" and "Govinda". "Two songs that start with G", he said.

Alonza was all smiley and Lisa remarked several times "He looks so nice! He's so cute!" (oh yeah, baby!!!) I had forgotten how much the guy sweats! It was just pouring down his face immediately. Towards the end I got 3 or 4 drops of Crispians sweat rained down on me (so did Lisa). She didn't like it but you won't hear me complaining! He didn't do near as much spitting when he sang as he did at the EI Rey (and yes, it was sweat not spit that hit us!)
Crispian's face looked really nice and pink, and I could see his scalp too! He had a bandaid on his left index finger that he eventually pulled off - and I thought that would make one heck of a sick souvenier (but it got tramped on as they left, and then disappeared. I honestly think that someone else took it!)

They had to climb back off the stage the way they got on, and people were then shoving toward to get handshakes and steal things off the stage. (throughout the show we were totally unmolested where we were - no shoving or anything, it was heaven!) Jay and Crispian got away. I saw a female hand snatch up Crispian's face cloth and at first I was upset, then I realised that it was Lisa's hand (whew!) and stashed it in my purse promptly! Paul came forward and I stuck my arm out hoping for a handshake but he ignored me completely, so I withdraw it completely, so I withdrew it, just as Alonza the Gorgeous ws giving out a handshake to the person on either side of me, the person on the left being Lisa, who was going "Marty, get your hand up there!" But it was too late and I was all disappointed, so she wiped her palm on mine "here, I just touched Alonza" - oh my envy!!!! So I was more than a little unhappy I had been right there and still totally ignored by the band. I think I am literally invisible to them! I dunno how they cut thru the crowd and disappeared but they did.

So I felt bad I'd been so near yet still so far from the band. Still I was the first one in and stood front and center against this stage that was maybe 30" high, and no monitors blocked where we two stood. Just surreal to have them that close, like the way it must have been before they were big. I am so grateful I got to be where I was (and I'm still shocked they were there after all!) And a huge thanks to all who sent me good vibes, cos it worked!!!