23th and 24th and will, as always, draw a huge crowd of youngsters, hippies, lovers of music and a lot of
people who just wanna party.
That is the leading reason I avoid attending Panic shows. Too many kids on to many drugs who really don’t care about anything except being seen at the show pumping their fists, screaming the words, hitting all the right lines from all the big songs and wearing really unoriginal t-shirts.
For instance, my personal favorite is the Fed EX take off which says “SPREAD EX” on the front and “SEND YOUR MIND” on the back. This leads me to my next point, Panic is truly a great band. I have a special place in my heart for their music and I always will. But, they cover a lot of songs written by a lot of important song writers and their audience hasn’t the slightest clue.
“Send Your Mind” is a Van Morrison Song, but ask almost anyone at the shows and they will say it’s an original. In fact “Satisfied” was and still is the most popular slogan for the band on stickers, t-shirts, hats - you name it. And lead singer John Bell does a terrific cover of the song and even goes off on tangents and raps of his own design much like the original writer of the song – Van Morrison.
I guess what I am trying to get across here is that Widespread Panic is good, great even sometimes. They are clearly influenced by some of the greatest musicians and bands of all time : Warren Zevon, Talking Heads, Van Morrison, Neal Young, Joe Strummer, Frank Zappa, JJ Cale, and so forth and so on. I just wish more of the fans knew that.
