Eric Burdon & the Animals

Last week, thursday October 6, 2011, I went to see Eric Burdon and the Animals at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. I was excited to see the show since I knew a few of the songs they sang and I had seen them performing on television when they were younger. Some of the songs I knew were "House of the Rising Sun", "Don't Let me be Misunderstood", " We Gotta Get Out of this Place", and "it's My Life. I was talking to a few women outside the concert that were older than me and they had never heard of them. Here's some background information on the Animals. The Animals were big in the 1960's. They are considered part of the British Invasion. There were five members of the band, Eric Burdon was lead vocals. The other four musicians played drums, bass, guitar, and keyboards/ organ. The band split up and reunited in 1977 and in 1983. The Animals were induced into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2003 the band had a falling out when it was discovered the original drummer, John Steele, owned the rights to the name The Animals. Burdon disputed it but lost. The concert began at 8:00pm and we got in and seated with time to spare. We were seated on the ground floor center stage about 15 rows back from the stage, right on the isle. I normally don't like sitting on the floor because it seems like there is always the tallest person sitting in front of you, or the loudest person sitting behind you. The worst is when there is a very bad smelling person sitting anywhere around you. This time I had a giant sitting in front of me and his weird strung out girl friend was sitting beside him. They were both rough looking but she had short bleach blonde hair in two high pigtails with a terribly crooked part. She spent most of the concert out of her seat but when she was in her seat she was hanging out into the isle. There were no smelly or loud people which was good. When the show started all the musicians just walked up on stage and began playing. There were no hellos or welcome to our show, just music. They started the show with some bluesy song, which I came to find certainly wouldn't be the last. About 85% of the concert was blues. The other 15% of the concert was him butchering all the songs I knew. When he sang the songs I, and just about everyone else, knew he basically talked through them, he wasn't singing. The parts of the songs that he did sing he was completely off on the timing. Some people just haven't figured out that people come to see them to hear them sing their songs they way they have heard them for the last 50 years, not some butchered version of it. I can uderstand him changing it up a few times because that gives the song a nice variety but he did the same thing every single time. It was too much. Another thing he did too much of was yelling, screaming, and making strange noises into the microphone. It was like it was his first time hearing himself sing into the microphone. In every song when there was a break from the singing he started making strange sounds or screaming. It got rather annoying.it was like giving a small child a microphone. The child would have done exactly the same thing he was doing. I would have thought the desire to do that would have diminished after hearing yourself sing for so many years. Here's the funny part. He still had a very strong voice and when he sang it was great. His voice had not weakened over the years like many of the other artist I have seen. His voice was powerful but he didn't use it to his advantage. Instead he used it to make strange sounds and scream and yell. He could have sounded exactly like the original recordings of his songs but he didn't. I was very surprised by his voice but even more surprised when he didn't use it to sing. His musicians had skills and they certainly used them. The drummer played a driving beat, and the guitar played played some impressive licks but the keyboard and organ player was the best in my opinion. Anyone could tell he was classically trained. He played some difficult solos on both the organ and the keyboard. He played two completely different things with each hand at the same time, one hand on the keyboard and one on the organ. He was great. Overall, the concert wasn't too bad. Eric Burdon still had a powerful voice but he didn't use it to sing his songs. There was a nice selection of very experienced musicians accompanying him on stage. The concert featured too many blues songs for my liking. Someone after the concert said he played a lot more blues that he normally does. Maybe he was just blue that day.