June 15, 2001   The Doobie Brothers
The Doobie Brothers is a representative West Coast rock band. In the early 1970's, the leader of the band was Tom Johnston, and the band had triple guitars & twin drums. The style was a kind of Boogie Rock. In the late 1970's, the leader changed to Michael McDonald, and the style became a kind of Blue-Eyed Soul. I think Michael's Doobies was more popular than Tom's, but I prefer Tom's rather than Michael's, and the end of the 1980's, Tom came back to the band. I saw them in Tokyo; the concert wasn't so good, but this time, West Coast is their home ground; thus, I expected a greater show from their concert.
On that particular day, I went to L.A. to see their concert. When I got on the 101, there were a lot of traffic jams on the road. I usually can go to L.A. from my home in about 2 hours, but that day, I spent 5 hours getting there. I looked about at the other cars on highway; some cars had L.A. Lakers flags, so I understood that everybody was going to L.A. to see the NBA final at sports bars or clubs on TV.
At 9:00 pm, when I entered House of Blues in West Hollywood, everybody was watching a TV monitor, and at 9:15 pm, an announcer said "Welcome to House of Blues! World champion Lakers!" At that time, everyone in the audience shouted for joy, and then, the opening act played for about 40 minutes. Next, three men entered the stage, and they showed a white guitar with autographs of the Doobies & Jackson Browne. It was an auction for some kind of a charity, and some people bid for the guitar. At last, some guy won it for $4,600! The curtain was closed again, and we waited some more. At 10:30 pm, the lights were turned off, we could hear a motorcycle's roaring and the curtain was opened. I saw the members on the stage.
They started to play the opening number "Rockin' Down the Highway" and next "Jesus is Just Alright" Everyone in the audience was wildly excited by their performance. I rushed forward, and I kept 2nd position from the stage. They played several songs from their new album.
John McFee, who is the guitarist, played a violin. It was a pretty good performance, and I clapped my hands for him, whereupon he said "Thank you" to me.
Also, John and Patrick Simons played wonderful acoustic guitars - only the two of them.
 The best performance of the night was "Takin' to the Street" Each member had his highlight scene of the song, and especially Tom and John's performance was really good. When Patrick sang "Black Water" which is my favorite song of bunch, he changed the lyrics. Although he usually sings "Mississippi" in the lyrics, he changed the 1st verse to "California" and the 2nd verse to "Los Angeles" The last song was "Long Train Runnin'" and the encore was "China Grove" and "Listen to the Music" Everybody sang with band, the scene was so emotional for me. It was quite a great show.
After the concert, I left the club and picked up my car. There were a lot of incredible traffic jams on Sunset Boulevard although it was midnight. Everybody was wearing Lakers' jerseys and making noise. I got to my home at 4:00 am.
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