rezzin sucks. they played cheesy, cliched prog rock that seemed to be part of a big joke but apparently was not. i do not want to talk about rezzin, so i will talk about dick dale.
dick dale, of course, is the king of the surf guitar. his tremolo-reverb action was the foundation of the surf-rock sound that is so tragically underappreciated today. think of it this way: surf is what punk would sound like if punk didn't suck. dick dale is not only a surf-guitar man, however, and he played surf-tinged takes on rock standards and a few johnny cash tunes (apparently he is a huge cash fan), as well as some more straightforward blues and spanish guitar. even his reverbed trumpet playing was superb, and his subsequent louis armstrong impression was classic. there was a short, unexpected acoustic portion, and this managed to surprise me by keeping me as entertained as i had been during the rocking surf tunes, if only because of dale's great personality. the thing about dale is that he is clearly a total badass - this can be detected by anyone in the room - but he refuses to take himself too seriously, and his populistic attitude avoids the rock star stereotypes. his comments and stage antics were hilarious and he gave picks to at least five fans. after the show, he stayed to sign things and talk to people until they wanted no more. this was easily one of the best shows i have seen - catch the man while you can.