Live music is an art form separate from all others. Whether you feed off the nuances of a live performance versus a recording or the band’s interaction with the crowd, most live shows foster a unique creative environment. Yet today, many of the live shows have lost certain facets of that uniqueness.
Thirty years ago this wasn’t the case. Moonalice is about bringing back that creative environment on which audiences at Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers and Phish shows thrived.
“Folks my age grew up listening to lots and lots of new music,” says Roger “Chubby” McNamee, frontman for the band. “So, the whole purpose behind Moonalice was to try to create an environment where instead of trying to recreate the music of the old days, (we) took that spirit and made it new music.”
Moonalice is a tribe. It’s a community. It’s a vibe. But more than anything else, it’s a group of musicians who have lived through one of modern music’s greatest time periods and who wish to share their past experiences (and their new ones) with whichever city they’re rolling through.
Most of the members have either played with, or are friends with, some of the greats from the ’70s, including The Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Phil Lesh, Bob Dylan and numerous others. McNamee is a longtime musician and a technology investor at Elevation Partners in San Francisco, his firm he shares with partners that include former Apple executive Fred Anderson and arena-rocker-turned-philanthropist and U2 lead singer Bono.
Needless to say, their connections and roots run deep. The band is aware of this privilege and knows how to harness it to create affordable shows, more crowd participation and to recreate a vibe and sound that had a profound and life-changing impact on them and millions of others.
McNamee loves hashing out the details of the past and reapplying them to the current in a new way, but he does so in a way that also preserves the magic that could only have happened in the ’70s. In addition to performing its original scores, Moonalice also covers other bands.
“I love tribute bands, and I loved that music when it was new. But there are those of us that grew up with that (music), grew up in a really different kind of musical environment; one where literally every week a song would come out that would change your life,” McNamee said.
Making new music though, and playing music in the same way and in the same context as the hippies from the ’70s, aren’t divergent aspects of the band. To them it’s a recreation of a pre-established practice; it’s surrounded by an ethos of constantly creating new sounds and reworking old methods. For example, the band just introduced 10 new songs to their repertoire as of the new year. Although, it’s just another day at the office for musicians as seasoned as Moonalice.
For those unfamiliar with how jam band shows are constructed, there are usually two sets, the second being a bit longer, with an intermission between and an encore that can extend as long as either of the first sets. You get dirty. If not from the hippy next to you, then from dancing barefoot with all the new friends you’ll meet. This is probably as free as you will ever be. That’s how things used to be, and that’s how Moonalice knows it needs to be now.
“When we were kids growing up, a rock show wasn’t just about music; there would be artists there, live painters, photographers,” McNamee said. “So that’s the vibe we’ve created.”
Moonalice’s shows are also as cheap as they come. The band makes sure ticket prices are as low as possible for its shows. It knows sharing music trumps any financial benefit that it could bring in the long run.
“There’s nothing about music that says it needs to make you a lot of money. In fact there’s nothing about any form of art that would imply that,” McNamee said. “Art’s about passion.”
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Moonalice and Lost Creek Gang
Friday, March 11, 9 p.m.
WOW Hall, 291 W. 8th Ave.
$8 in advance, $10 at the door