Makua Rothman too.
It is flat in Southern California, still, with a strange mucky gloom hanging in the sky. It has been this way for months, now, driving surf fans to the brink of madness though, today, none of that matters. For a mania has begun to take hold that has nothing to do with no waves nor sun.
A hysteria.
For but yesterday, Keanu Reeves’ band Dogstar took the stage at Eddie Vedder’s Ohana Festival in Dana Point, California.
Johnny Utah himself plucking his bass strings while surf fans, crazed, rubbed their eyes in the audience. Dogstar, of course, was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1991 when Reeves saw a man wearing a hockey sweater in the supermarket. The two got to talking, then jamming, then, as Reeves tells it, “You know, we started in a garage, and then you end up starting to write songs, and then you’re like ‘Let’s go out and play them!’, and then you’re like ‘Let’s go on tour!’, and then…you’re playing.”
There is not word, yet, on how the show was as surf fans are still in a cloud of disbelief but take a gander here.
Makua Rothman also opened the day.
Vedder and his Pearl Jam closed it.
But were you there, live, in the audience? How was it? I heard that Pearl Jam played a never-before-performed tune off a 1999 release called “The Whale Song.” Vedder said, from stage, “It’s a song written by one of our great drummers named Jack Irons. We asked Jack but he could not be here. But we didn’t just get the next best thing, we got something equally as good as his dad, it’s Mr. Zach Irons who’s gonna join us on this next song. He’s gonna play guitar, left-handed, and we’re gonna sing and we hope it connects and sends vibrations to our friends under the water.”
If you missed yesterday and have fallen into the deepest of depressions, don’t worry. The festival kicks on today with Sting headlining. Tomorrow it’s back to Pearl Jam and Alanis Morissette at the top of the bill.
No more Dogstar but one hand in pocket, the other giving a high five ain’t bad.
