With music and lyrics by Tom Jones and a book by Harvey Schmidt, The Fantasticks holds the distinction of being the longest-running Broadway musical. The musical fable puts a quirky twist on the narratives of Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story. Loosely based on the play The Romancers, it’s centered around two young hearts and their fathers—who, rather than seeking to keep them apart, conspire to bring them together by pretending to hate each other. Guggenheim Entertainment celebrates The Fantasticks’ 60th anniversary with this production, which runs through Feb. 23.

The Fantasticks
Thu, 7:30pm, $45+
3Below Theatres & Lounge, San Jose

CHRIS PORTER SUMS up his latest standup special by highlighting what it lacks: “No politics, no religion, no racism,” Porter says of A Man From Kansas. Throughout his new special, Porter steers clear of overt partisanship, while still lampooning the tribal rituals that serve as flashpoints in the broader culture wars. “Hipster food,” people complacent with—or even proud of their ignorance—and toxic masculinity all draw his ire.

In A Man From Kansas we find Porter critical, matter-of-fact and annoyed. He pokes fun at social and cultural happenings in everyday life, but he rarely, if ever, mentions politics or religion—controversial themes which many contemporary comics employ. Still, his tactful criticisms do skirt hot button issues.

In one bit, Porter laments the trend of yuppies’ tendency to overthink comfort food. Porter is irked by the ubiquity of cheeseburgers topped with garlic aioli, arugula and havarti, and the dearth of no-frills diner fare in Los Angeles: “I just want breakfast, you know what I’m saying? I don’t want a Radiohead album.”

Later on, Porter critiques self-important ignoramuses and their penchant for shouting dumb ideas at anyone who will listen. Calling out flat-earthers and chemtrail believers, Porter goes off on those who have turned the internet into an echo chamber of idiocy and crackpot theories. “Google is not an answer engine; it’s a search engine,” Porter yells. “It doesn’t tell you when you’re being a dumbass. It just connects you with 80,000 other dumbasses who think the same dumbass shit as you do.”

Born and raised in Shawnee, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, Porter cut his teeth on the Midwest standup circuit before moving out to Los Angeles. He’s appeared on Season 4 of NBC’s Last Comic Standing and Tommy Chong’s Comedy@420 and has a trio of hour-long specials to his name. His blunt observational humor and clever, self-deprecating anecdotes certainly make for a winning combination, but Porter credits his success in large part to his aversion to direct political commentary.

“It’s just so polarized today,” Porter says, explaining his policy. “Nowadays, it’s hard to have a good conversation about these things. I dont think its our job as comedians to always provide a political angle. There’s so much other stuff to talk about that’s funny and that isn’t divisive.”

However, Porter’s acts still dance around tough topics. One particularly thorny issue he tackles in A Man From Kansas is toxic masculinity. Far too many men, he says, are unable to express emotions outside of happiness, anger and confusion, which often overlap. Porter also takes aim at “douchebags in positions of power,” who abuse their station to abuse and degrade women. He implores men to step their game up and rebuild what he refers to as “the man-brand” by treating women with respect.

Oh… And one more thing: “Please, for the love of God, stop sending people pictures of your dick,” he cracks. 

Porter, who’s been performing for 20 years, is getting ready to embark on yet another tour, which will bring him to the Bay Area for a four-night residency at the San Jose Improv. He’s looking forward to the road, as it is the place where he generates the majority of his material. After the release of a special, he’ll start from scratch, looking for new topics to tease out. Once he’s hit upon something he feels is resonating, he’ll sit down with a paper and pen, and map out the many possible directions the joke might go.

Still, keeping his performances fresh means leaving plenty of breathing room for his developing material. This is why, Porter says he enjoys playing places like San Jose.

“I’ve found that audiences on the coasts tend to be more open for you to explore” compared to audiences in other parts of the country, Porter says. “They’re cool with you not being funny for a second as you’re trying to find a new joke or premise. A lot of audiences out here are kind of hip to that. Folks in the Midwest tend to want to just hear the hits.”

Chris Porter
Thu-Sun, Various Times, $20+
The Improv, San Jose
improv.com/sanjose

Arguably the queen of 1980s rock, Pat Benatar has achieved a singular mix of success, both critically and commercially. With record sales of more than 30 million units to her credit, Benatar is among the most successful—and undeniably talented—artists of the modern rock era.

Six of the diminutive singer’s albums have gone platinum in the United States, and she found significant success in Europe and Australia as well. Her striking good looks and powerful voice made Benatar a darling of the nascent MTV when it launched in 1981, and she would remain a fixture of the channel’s music programming through the 1980s.

In the days before the internet, instant retrieval of biographical information wasn’t possible. But word got around that Benatar was no pop tart; she was a vocalist with gravitas, one who had initially pursued a career as an opera singer. And that degree of talent, finesse and power was evident in both her singing and the highly charged, borderline grandiose arrangements of her hit singles. Songs like her cover of the Young Rascals’ “You Better Run,” as well as “Shadows of the Night,” “We Belong” and “Love is a Battlefield” had all of the melodrama of Meat Loaf’s work with Jim Steinman, but with a more versatile singer out front.

Though Benatar isn’t known primarily as a songwriter, she has been astute in her choice of material. A key to her success all along has been her longtime guitarist, collaborator and (since 1982) husband, Neil Giraldo. Giraldo built his reputation as a producer who figured out how best to present Benatar’s talents on record, and he soon parlayed those skills into effective production work for a host of other artists as well.

Benatar’s gifts and ambitions have always been too expansive to remain inside the confines of hard rock; her 1991 release, True Love, found her working in the pre-rock & roll jump blues idiom. Since that time, she has focused less on releasing studio albums: three more in the ‘90s, Go in 2003 and none since then. But she has remained active, recording and releasing occasional singles including “Shine” in 2017 to support the Women’s March in Washington D.C.

Yet as a live performer, Benatar (with Giraldo) has never slowed down; she’s mounted a tour every single year since 1991; the current run of dates celebrates the 40th anniversary of her debut album, In the Heat of the Night and the tour in support of that record.

Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo
July 23, 7 p.m. $79.50 and up
Mountain Winery
mountainwinery.com

“I’m a nobody,” Jeff Larsen says with a laugh. Most weekdays, the West San Jose resident works as a real estate agent. On weekends, he spends time with his family and friends. On occasion, he boards a commercial aircraft for some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, where he dons a long-haired wig with bangs, a leopard-print shirt, tight jeans and a blazer and belts out “Don’t Stop Believin’” for a crowd of American and allied troops.

On days like these, Larson isn’t entirely himself. He is Perry Stevens—frontman for Journey Unauthorized, a tribute to one of the biggest bands to ever come out of the Bay Area.

Aside from playing the normal tribute band gigs—casinos, private parties and fairs (his band plays the Santa Clara County Fair on Aug. 4)—Larson has forged a relationship with a booking agent handling overseas entertainment for service members.

“We’re his favorite Journey tribute band,” Larson says. “He just works with us.”

It’s not exactly a normal gig for a tribute group, Larson says, but it is definitely exciting and the pay is pretty good. Plus, when he and his band aren’t playing in regions where they have to worry about enemy fire, they get to do some sightseeing. Six months back Journey Unauthorized played at a base in Jordan, and he and the guys took a trip to Israel.

“It’s a rush,” he says, “especially for a guy who never made it. This is icing on the cake.”

Since the earliest days of the Elvis Presley impersonator, tribute bands have found a place in the music scene as a way for audiences to hear their favorite songs from their favorite artists in a more accessible setting. Tribute bands also allow casual music fans to attend a concert and know exactly what they are getting for their ticket.

While tribute bands have long been seen as a niche in music, they’ve exploded in popularity in the last 20 years as classic rock icons have retired or passed on. Now, for many fans, venues and musicians, tribute bands have increasingly become the bread and butter in the live music business.

In the South Bay, venues both large and small regularly turn to tribute acts to draw crowds. The Ritz in downtown San Jose has two tribute shows scheduled for the second half of July alone. This Charming Band, a Smiths and Morrissey act, plays the club on Jul. 20; Temptation, which specializes in New Order, headlines the following weekend, Jul. 20.

Just last week a group called Brit Floyd played at the Mountain Winery, bringing spot-on Pink Floyd covers and a serious light show to the Saratoga open-air theater.

While Brit Floyd is based out of the UK and regularly tours the world, many tribute acts keep things local. Aside from the armed forces shows, Journey Unauthorized tends to stay on the West Coast. The same goes for The Killer Queens (Queen), Maroon Vibes (Maroon 5), Petty Theft (Tom Petty), Zeparella (Led Zeppelin) and the Sun Kings (The Beatles)—all of whom are based locally.

DIFFERENT STROKES

“I saw The Cure in 1989,” says Mark Sharp, bassist for This Charming Band as well as Bloodflowers, a tribute to The Cure. He remembers that show—and the time he saw Morrissey, in 1992—fondly. When he first began playing his own music, he was attempting to emulate groups like The Smiths and U2. “That’s what shaped me as a musician.”

He’s worked in many bands, including The Trims, that write original material, and has always enjoyed that process. But, he says, playing in a tribute band is something entirely different. “The appeal for me is trying to recapture what those shows meant to me and what those records meant to me so many years ago.”

As for Morgan Hill resident Joe Urbano, his striking resemblance to Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine led him to front Maroon Vibes.

A family man with a career in the semiconductor industry, on weekends Urban slips on nylon tattoo sleeves and runs through the Maroon 5 catalog with his band at parties and community events. They’ll be playing the Gilroy Garlic Festival at the end of July.

Urbano, who has always written and performed his own music, says playing in a tribute is a way for him to keep up with a hobby that he loves while making a little cash on the side.

“I never thought I’d be in a tribute band, honestly,” he shrugs. “But if you just love music and performing, why not?”

For Nina Noir, a big part of the appeal is the energy and appreciation she feels when she is on stage. The San Jose native fronts the Killer Queens, an all female Queen tribute.

While she’s written and continues to write original tunes, she says her own music has never taken her far. “It’s very difficult to be a female rock vocalist,” she says. “Bands typically want men”—especially in the genres that she’s always gravitated toward, namely hard rock and metal.

In the Killer Queens she doesn’t worry about those kinds of politics. “Freddie Mercury is probably the perfect front person to gender-bend,” she says. And judging by her success, she’s got a point.

The Killer Queens have a packed summer schedule that takes them up and down the West Coast, to Las Vegas and even to Miami. They’ll be playing the Santa Clara County Fair on Aug. 2 and they have a few Facebook corporate parties on in their datebook as well.

Looking back, Noir doesn’t regret going this route. “This opened a lot of doors for me,” she says.

HERO WORSHIP

Veteran hard-rock drummer Clementine first fell in love with Led Zeppelin as a youngster listening to KMET radio in Southern California, and when she began to hit the skins herself, she realized just how much influence Zeppelin drummer John Bonham had on her musical aspirations.

In 2004, Clementine was looking to better learn those Zeppelin songs and the drum parts she loved. She hooked up with guitarist Gretchen Menn, who admired Jimmy Page as much as Clementine admired Bonham, and the two formed the Bay Area’s all-female tribute band Zepparella.

“When we started it, we looked at it being a practice project,” says Clementine. “Shortly after, we started talking about, ‘Why not do it onstage?’”

For Clementine, it was and still is all about the music.

“I wanted to get better as a drummer, and why not go to the source of how I got into playing drums?” she says. “I feel like I came into this through the back way. It wasn’t that I set out to start a tribute band; it was that I wanted to learn this stuff and see what happens.”

Even 15 years into the band, Clementine notes that she’s still learning from Bonham. “We just keep going forward because it’s so musically exciting,” she says. “Led Zeppelin is maybe the only band that I could continue to play for 15 years, and a lot of that is because we take parts of the songs and develop them through improvisation onstage, and Led Zeppelin gives us that freedom because they were so improvisational in the way they presented the music. It enables us to create new parts of songs, new ways to approach songs. It’s always changing.”

In addition to the musical explorations afforded to her in Zepparella, Clementine appreciates that the band can act as a steady source of income and help her develop an audience for her other singer-songwriter projects.

“The creative process as far as being able to write something from scratch with other musicians is a beautiful thing, and I have that in the other projects I do,” she says. “I value it all. I feel like one feeds the other, what I learn from Zeppelin is what I take to my original writing, and parts of my original writing I put into the drumming with Zepparella.”

This year, Zepparella is offering fans a way to learn the songs themselves, with the newly launched Zepparella Learning Channel on YouTube, a series of videos in which the members teach the audiences their parts to a Led Zeppelin tune. So far, the series has featured “When the Levee Breaks” and “Immigrant Song.”

“It’s been a remarkable learning experience for us to teach these songs,” says Clementine. “For 15 years we’ve been learning all these little things that you learn playing this music onstage, and to be able to share that freely with people, it feels like we’re able to give a little back from what we’ve gained playing the music.”

Obviously, Led Zeppelin will never play together in concert again. And even if classic rock acts like the Rolling Stones or AC/DC are still touring, they’re not playing in venues with four walls; they’re in stadiums that often don’t offer the intimacy that a club can provide. Clementine sees Zepparella as a way for audiences to experience the classic rock of yesterday in an intimate setting. “To be able to get swallowed up by theses songs in a smaller venue is where the power is,” she says.

Zepparella continues to thrive because of the power of those Led Zeppelin songs, and Clementine says the tribute band has lasted so long because of the musicians she’s been able to share that power with. “I value the people I’ve played with in the past and now,” she says. “It’s a great experience. I wouldn’t trade it.”

CREATIVE LICENSE

Tribute bands come in many forms. Not to be confused with cover bands, which play a variety of different songs by well known pop artists, tribute acts tend stick exclusively to a single group’s repertoire. Some make an effort to approximate the look and feel of the bands to which they are paying homage. Others go all out, springing for custom costumes, special effects and even purchasing the same gear used by the bands they are aping. It’s practically like a Broadway show.

In fact, while it’s hard to pinpoint the origin of the tribute act as a distinct type of live musical entertainment, some point to Beatlemania, the Broadway musical revue, as the start of it all. Debuting in 1977 and running through 1979, the show was billed as “Not the Beatles, but an incredible simulation.”

Monroe Grisman, the guitarist and vocalist for the Marin- and San Francisco-based Petty Theft, says he’s seen some very convincing simulations in his day. “I just saw a Genesis tribute band with set designs and period-specific gear,” Grisman says. “And there’s certain value for that, like for me that was the closest thing I’ll ever get to seeing Peter Gabriel-era Genesis in 1973.”

Forgoing the costumes themselves, Petty Theft focuses on performing the music and honoring the sound, while also adding their own flourishes and taking liberties that keep the concerts fresh for fans.

“I think it’s why we’ve built up a pretty amazing following now: People like that we are not trying to be Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; rather, we always pay tribute and we always give it up to the real deal.”

And the real deal has given it up back at them, with Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone meeting the band through a mutual friend and sitting in with Petty Theft three times over the years. “It’s been an amazing honor,” says Grisman.

Noir has also earned the blessing of original Queen members Roger Taylor and Brian May. Taylor gave her the OK in person, when she and her band attended the premiere of the recent Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.

“They 100 percent thought it was wonderful.”

ROCK DOCTRINE

Things don’t always go so well for tribute acts.

Paul B. Ungar, Esq. is a New Jersey-based entertainment lawyer concentrating in intellectual property and contracts. He has advised Noir on how to best avoid legal blowback with her Killer Queens endeavor.

It’s not the performance of any given song or string of songs that is the issue, Ungar explains. If a tribute band is playing at a club that is on the up-and-up—that is, a venue that is in good standing with the major music licensing organizations BMI, ASCAP and SESAC—the tribute act is covered.

However, things get trickier as a tribute band gets larger, begins to market itself, creates promotional material featuring its own performances of other artists’ material and endeavors to take on the likeness of a celebrity.

The kind of satire and parody that a show like Saturday Night Live engages in is recognized as free speech and is protected. But when someone is using an artist’s likeness and performing their music in the way that tribute acts do, the waters are far murkier.

“It really comes down to how the famous band reacts,” Ungar says. “Technically, it is violating all sorts of laws.”

In the past, Ungar says, Apple Corps—The Beatles’ recording label—has gone after successful Beatles tribute acts and won. And the late Prince was known for having a serious distaste for tribute acts that sought to profit from his catalog and image. In 2008, the Purple One sued a group of Norwegian artists who had recorded an album of covers intended to honor the artist for his 50th birthday.

Still, most of the bands interviewed for this story weren’t too concerned with getting slapped with a lawsuit—even Larson, who says he has dealt with “cease and desist” letters from Journey in the past.

“They came after us in the beginning,” Larson recalls, adding that there are now so many Journey tribute bands that it’s probably hard for the band’s label and lawyers to keep up. “I’m just not on their radar anymore.”

Practically speaking, Ungar says, even though the tribute acts often “don’t have a leg to stand on,” the original bands simply allow them to do their thing. As Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich learned in the aftermath of Napster, it never looks good when a massive band goes after the little guy.

Plus, Ungar adds, “What happens in real life is that some bands are more than happy to let tribute bands  co-exist. That just increases the value of their brand.”

Up in the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, a mere two miles from Hollywood Boulevard, there lies a relatively secluded enclave known as Laurel Canyon. Beginning in the mid-’60s and continuing for about a decade, the Canyon became an incubator for a particular kind of music.

Songwriters flocked to the Canyon, making homes there, developing their material and often collaborating on projects. A celebration of that creatively fertile scene, “Live From Laurel Canyon” brings this history to light through songs and stories.

Singer-songwriter Brian Chartrand developed “Live From Laurel Canyon” to help audiences discover the connections among the many well-known artists who came out of the Laurel Canyon scene. While people may know every word and every note of the songs in the 90-minute show, Chartrand says, “they might not know the context in which those songs were created.” That’s what “Live from Laurel Canyon” is all about.

“The focus of the show is how these young singer-songwriters took the elements of folk and rock & roll and made something great, changing the face of American popular music,” he explains. To do that, Chartrand and his six fellow musicians do more than simply play the songs.

“I like context,” he says. “So before we dive into the music, we provide a backdrop of what was happening socially and politically in the country.”

The events of the tumultuous 1960s had an enduring effect on most everyone who lived through that period. “It was a really interesting moment in American history,” Chartrand says, “with a generation of songwriters who were feeling disconnected from their parents’ music and disenfranchised from politics.”

“Live from Laurel Canyon” charts a chronological path from the Mamas and the Papas’ 1965 single “California Dreamin’”—following that thread as it intertwines with the stories of Buffalo Springfield, James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Eagles, Jackson Browne and many others. “It just keeps going,” says Chartrand. The up-close-and-personal tone of the 90-minute concert helps place familiar songs into the wider context of popular culture.

Chartrand launched “Live From Laurel Canyon” in his Phoenix hometown a few years ago; today the show tours all over the US; a scaled-down version of the show toured Europe. Audiences everywhere connect with the songs and stories, he says. “All of that sentiment and talent coalesced in a special way that I’m not sure we’ll see again.”

Live From Laurel Canyon
May 10, 8 p.m. $51-$56
Carriage House Theatre
montalvoarts.org

There was a time when it made sense for the Dwarves to exist. Founded in the mid-’80s, they began in Chicago as a brash garage-psych outfit. By then, shock rock was nothing new and the hardcore scene had already formed as a razor-sharp splinter of the punk movement.

It’s easy enough to trace a line—from the antics of Jerry Lee Lewis on through Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper—to the likes of GG Allin, GWAR and Mötley Crüe.

Certainly, Blag Dahlia and HeWhoCannotBeNamed—the two bombastic and button-pushing personalities who have always been at the center of the Dwarves’ ever-rotating lineup—would have been aware of these artists (along with far more obscure musical transgressors).

Even into the ’90s and early aughts—as the Dwarves transmogrified and solidified into a hardcore-leaning amalgam of all their influences; and as the toxic masculinity of rap-metal and screamo swirled about them—it is conceivable to think that a band who would put blood-drenched naked women on the cover of an album titled Blood, Guts and Pussy, and pen a song titled “Let’s Get High and Fuck Some Sluts” would be allowed to exist.

But in 2019? The era of the ultimately woke social justice warrior? No way.

And yet here they are, touring behind a relatively new record, which features cover art that is perhaps even more incendiary than that featured on Blood, Guts and Pussy. The cover of 2018’s Take Back the Night juxtaposes a rallying cry against rape culture with the image of a black man holding a gun over a black woman. She is apparently in distress as she rakes a credit card through a pile of white powder.

But when Dahlia, whose given name is Paul Cafaro, answers the phone from his home in San Francisco—known throughout the world as a bastion of progressive ideals and vilified by conservatives as the epicenter of out-of-control political correctness—he says he and his band are impervious to accusations of misogyny, homophobia, racism and generalized indecency.

“We’re kind of inoculated from it,” he says in his deep, calm voice, noting that the people most vulnerable to the whims of the PC Police are those who make a show of following the rules, but end up on YouTube saying something gauche after too many vodka sodas.

“It’s easy to knock them down. Anything that they do that falls short of glory and perfection is seized upon,” he says. “We’ve always existed so far out of that realm. Where are you even going to start criticizing this band?”

Most who know anything about the Dwarves know that Dahlia is a character and that Cafaro is a well-read, thoughtful and deliberate agitator—not unlike Iggy Pop or Alice Cooper.

As Dahlia, Cafaro says he is often playing the role of a satirist. “We celebrate the foibles of the human race,” he says—ostensibly by inhabiting truly despicable characters: rapists, the sadistic and aggressively violent, irredeemable and unrepentant murderers.

It’s true, what the Dwarves do falls under the banner of artful expression. And yet, with the rise of Trumpism in the United States and an increasingly open embrace of fascism in Western European countries, it begs the question that Dahlia himself asked in a 2014 interview with Vice Media’s music blog, Noisey: “Are we capable of understanding the difference between a song and reality?”

In his interview with Metro he seems to answer his own question, musing that perhaps it is “too much to ask of other people.”

And so, does he ever think he ought to pull back? That perhaps there are some forms of expression too dangerous to be allowed if we want a peaceful and functional society?

His answer is unequivocal: No.

“My politics have always been relatively left wing,” he says. “There are some notable exceptions.” However, one of the biggest problems he sees today is not in people failing to interpret a satirical work correctly—the kind of South Park Republicans who read a sardonic takedown of racism as an endorsement of white supremacy.

Rather, he says, the biggest problem lies in the success that right wing think tanks have had in convincing Americans that well meaning but overstepping progressive activists are equally as bad as the alt-right demonstrators in Charlottesville.

“Being a fascist is much more serious,” he says. “And if we’re going to criticise the PC Police, let’s also criticize those who would hurdle us toward fascism from the right. I don’t think the answer is to shut everybody down. That can’t be the right answer.”

Dwarves
Apr 6, 8pm, $13+
The Ritz, San Jose

Local community worker and photographer Abraham Menor celebrates the release of Digging Sound Collect—a book of photography focused on vinyl collectors, producers and DJs. Stemming from Menor’s own love of wax, it is a passion project about a passionate pursuit. The photographs capture vinyl junkies digging through dusty crates, in the recording studio and dropping the needle at home. Every collection is unique and speaks to the personality of the subject in front of the lens. A number of selectors, including Cutso and That Girl, will be spinning at the artist reception this Saturday. The exhibit runs through Jan. 25. (NV)

Digging Sound
Sat, 7pm, Free
Kaleid Gallery, San Jose

In a city dominated by the search for the next best thing, it can be refreshing to cast a gaze backward every once in a while. Dating back to 1918, the Kearney Pattern Works & Foundry was the oldest metal foundry in San Jose. With the announcement of its closure last year, photographer Philip Krayna set about chronicling the final months of this historic business that weathered the changing needs of the valley, from producing canning equipment and World War II supplies to biomedical and electronic components. Sep. 26 is a members-only opening; the exhibit opens to the public the following day and runs through Aug. 31, 2019.

Breaking the Mold
Thu, Noon, Free
History Park, San Jose

If the recent influx of taprooms opening up all over Silicon Valley proves anything, it’s that hackers love beer just as much as anyone, and that many of them have taken a scientific approach to their sudsing. Enter Geektoberfest, wherein The Tech Museum aims to put beer under the microscope. The event features tastings from a wide range of local and regional craft breweries. The twist is your brew comes with demos and experiments on the biology of beer making. There’s also live music from a German-Swiss accordion band called Zicke-Zacke. Nothing makes craft brew taste better than polka.

Geektoberfest
Thu, 7pm $25
The Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose

Greta Van Fleet can’t seem to catch a break. The young foursome from the faux-Bavarian town of Frankenmuth, Michigan, has sustained criticism for copping its sound from 1970s rock giants Led Zeppelin. The group’s debut track, “Highway Tune,” is characterized by Josh Kiszka’s Robert Plant doppelganger wail and Jacob Kiszka’s Jimmy Page-style guitar licks.

If that weren’t enough, when pressed on the issue during an interview with Dutch music journalists FaceCulture, lead guitarist Jake Kiszka went so far as assert that “Led Zeppelin wasn’t an overwhelming influence of ours.”

In that June 2018 YouTube interview, Jake claimed with a straight face that until online chatter began, the band “didn’t realize the similarities and commonalities that we share with … that group.”

There’s a deep irony here: Not to take away from Led Zeppelin’s greatness, but Robert Plant and Jimmy Page themselves earned a reputation—backed up in court cases won against them—for lifting music from others without giving credit. Rightly or not, at its core, rock & roll has always been about borrowing ideas.

The fact remains that when taking Greta Van Fleet on their own merits, one can readily admit that it’s pretty good. There’s an energy on the group’s pair of EPs that evokes the best of arena rock from the 1970s and ’80s.

The three Kiszka brothers (Josh, Jake and Sam) and drummer Danny Wagner were all born some two decades or more after Led Zeppelin’s swansong, In Through the Out Door, was released.

To some extent, all artists are the product of their influences. And it’s reasonable to allow young musicians—albeit ones growing up in public—to develop their own style as they mature.

Still, “When the Curtain Falls,” the first single from the upcoming Anthem of the Peaceful Army sounds a whole lot like Led Zeppelin II’s “Heartbreaker.” Changing it up just a little, Josh’s vocals on the advance track “Watching Over” sound more like Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Axl Rose. And the instrumentation has faint echoes of ’70 Southern rock.

The trick to making a lasting impression, and to becoming more than the musical flavor of the month, is to assimilate influences and recast them in a way that adds something new. It remains to be seen if the band’s first full-length (out Oct. 19) will reach that goal. 

Greta Van Fleet
Sep 18, 8 p.m. $39.50
City National Civic
sanjosetheaters.org