The Turtles’ Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan — aka “Flo and Eddie” — return to Red Bank at the helm of the hit-packed Happy Together Tour, the 2014 edition of which buses into the Basie on Saturday, June 28.
Set those transistor radios to STUN, and spark up a broad blast of ‘Nam-era nostalgia: the retro-rocking, magic-bus excursion known as the Happy Together Tour returns to the Count Basie Theatre this Saturday night, June 28 — and let no advancing waistline or receding hairline stay them from their course.
Presented by the Light of Day Foundation (the same folks who bring you that January jolt of star-quality benefit concerts in Asbury Park), the annual package production is once again topped by historic headliners The Turtles — that mid-60s “harmonic convergence” who kept the Brits at bay with a series of Beatle-beating classics (“Elenore,” “You Showed Me,” and of course, “Happy Together“) that showed a greater pop genius beyond the bubblegum moment. Co-frontmen Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan would rebrand as Flo & Eddie; doing time with Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, producing fine albums by The Good Rats and DMZ — and contributing awesome backing vocals on everything from Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” to the most memorable recordings of Marc Bolan’s T. Rex.
Those “two guys from Westchester” are back on the bus for the 30th anniversary edition of the Happy — and they’re being joined on an especially eclectic bill by a Hollywood-pedigreed popster, a signature voice of soulful 70s singles, and a couple of raucous rockers imported from Detroit.
Together again for the first time on Happy Together 2014 are Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, and Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farner.
Anyone with a stack of scratched-up 45s to show for their time on Earth knows Chuck Negron as the voice of such Three Dog Night chartbusters as “Joy to the World” and “One.” He’s joined by Gary Lewis, the singing-drummer son of comic kingpin Jerry Lewis who’s credited with taking “This Diamond Ring” and “She’s Just My Style” to the top of those same charts a few years earlier. All who remember the Boss’s “Detroit Medley” as the one true highlight of the No Nukes soundtrack were on the receiving end of a crash-course in the roof-raising rambunctiousness of Mitch Ryder, the garage-R&B shouter whose “Devil with a Blue Dress” and “Sock It To Me Baby” still pack a wallop. And there’s the return to hale and hearty form of Mark Farner, the long-maned Grand Funk guitarist-frontman whose heyday spanned album-side power trio explorations (“Closer to Home”) and some genuinely punchy hit singles of the glam-rock era (“The Loco-Motion,” “We’re an American Band”).
Tickets ($29.50 – $79.50, with a $119.50 VIP meet-and-greet option) can be scored right here.
