{"id":579,"date":"2001-12-13T01:51:00","date_gmt":"2001-12-13T01:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=579"},"modified":"2024-03-26T01:52:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T01:52:28","slug":"rolie-at-the-roadhouse-whoa-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=579","title":{"rendered":"Rolie at the Roadhouse\u2014whoa, surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The prospect of going out on a cold, Sunday night, as opposed to holding court on the trusty sofa, didn\u2019t sound attractive. The idea of hanging out at a bar with a bunch of avid Santana and Journey fans, furthermore, placed the appearance of Gregg Rolie<\/strong> at the Roadhouse high on my list of things not<\/em> to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after a bit of careful coercion\u2014make that incessant plodding\u2014from a neighbor, I ventured out to Raley Boulevard and Bell Avenue in Del Paso Heights, home of hard-rock nightclub the Roadhouse, which has been giving Orangevale\u2019s Boardwalk a run for its money lately. Recent bands that have appeared at the Roadhouse include Faster Pussycat, LA Guns, Ratt, UFO\u2019s Michael Schenker and the annual reunion of Y&T.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parking lot was, surprisingly, packed. Who would have expected that Rolie, an ex-member of Santana and founding member of Journey, would be much of a draw in Sacramento\u2014a town where even Metallica can\u2019t sell out its Arco Arena date in advance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 8:30 p.m., Rolie and company took the stage in front of a capacity crowd of around 200, rocking the house with a set of originals, a few Santana staples and even a Journey classic, \u201cJust the Same Way.\u201d The latter featured guitarist Dave Amato<\/strong>, from the current lineup of REO Speedwagon, doubling as Journey\u2019s Neal Schon and<\/em> Steve Perry\u2014a task that he handled surprisingly well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolie was touring to support Roots<\/em>, his recent album on 33rd Street, the Tower Records-owned label; it was the final night of a six-date West Coast swing. According to the band\u2019s soundman, these were merely \u201ctest shows,\u201d the precursor to an opening slot on a major shed tour coming sometime in 2002. From the spicy opener \u201cGoing Home\u201d to the immensely popular \u201cOye Como Va,\u201d the band played a spirited set of blues, Latin rock and world beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guys in Rolie\u2019s band were no slouches, either. Alphonso Johnson<\/strong> held court on bass and played alarmingly well with drummer Ron Wikso. Tom Gimbell <\/strong>played both keys and saxophone, while percussionists Adrian Ares<\/strong> and Michael Carabell<\/strong>o<\/strong> served up the definitive Santana sound with relative ease. On such tracks as \u201cNo One to Depend On\u201d and \u201cBlack Magic Woman,\u201d it was apparent that rock royalty was in the house. Even Rolie\u2019s tracks from Roots<\/em>\u2014\u201cLove Is Everything\u201d and \u201cCon Todo Mi Corazon\u201d\u2014easily could\u2019ve been included on an early Santana release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolie\u2019s tenure in two of classic rock\u2019s biggest bands was not by mistake. His vocal and keyboard talents, as evidenced by the night\u2019s performance, remain in fine form. Once more, his backing band knows how to serve up a healthy platter of whupass. If \u201cJingo\u201d or the instrumental dabbling on \u201cDomingo\u201d didn\u2019t set the people inside the club on a musical journey, then at the very least we were given an experience\u2014the kind that people talk about for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gregg Rolie will be back. More importantly, he never left.Scene & heard was reported by .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SN&R)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The prospect of going out on a cold, Sunday night, as opposed to holding court on the trusty sofa, didn\u2019t sound attractive. The idea of hanging out at a bar with a bunch of avid Santana and Journey fans, furthermore, placed the appearance of Gregg Rolie at the Roadhouse high on my list of things not to do. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}