On The Road With Lights

There is comfort in becoming familiar with your favorite band. You see them play in familiar places among familiar faces. You become familiar with the set list and know what songs they are going to play before they do. If you are lucky enough to follow a great band, this familiarity leads to an expectation that every time you walk into a club to see them you are going to hear great music and have a good night.

While comfort in anything is not necessarily bad, it is interesting to see what happens when the familiar becomes unfamiliar. What would happen if you shook things up and added an unknown element to what is known. What would happen if you took the band you know and love, have them travel 450 miles up the state and ask them to play for a crowd that has never seen them play? Would they still be as great as they are at home among the faithful crowds they always play for? Would they be able to deliver the same high-energy show? On Friday, Lights were put to that very test. The band traveled up to Chico, California, a small college town about an hour north of Sacramento to play at LaSalle’s. I decided to go up there to see if what was wonderful in L.A. would be equally as wonderful elsewhere.

The excitement in the air was noticeable the minute I was close enough to hear a local radio station. KFM had been promoting the show all week and hearing the band talked about on the radio is something that is unfamiliar to me but very cool! The excitement continued to build when the crowd started to filter into LaSalle’s. People seem to have an attitude of "ok, we hear you are good, prove it". Journey, a San Francisco based band, have a very devoted following in Northern California. Claudia, a Journey fan, had spent the weekend before in San Francisco seeing a local Journey tribute band that was "good " and came to LaSalle’s to see if Lights could compare. Raymond, a Journey fan from the days when Greg Rollie was the singer, was skeptical as well. While I listened to the chatter going on around me, I smiled knowing what a great show this crowd was in for. Being familiar with the band gave me an advantage over the locals: I knew the band was definitely up to the challenge of quieting the skeptics!

I was not wrong. By the time the band hit the stage the excitement was off the charts! It was the first night of spring break and Chico was ready to party, leaving it to Lights to provide the soundtrack. What a soundtrack! Venturing away from the great opener "Escape", the band got the party started with "Wheel in the Sky" This was followed by the one-two punch of "Anyway You Want It" and "Stone In Love" and before long the floor in front of the band was packed wall to wall with people, dancing and singing at the top of their lungs! In fact, the crowd sung louder than the band at many points, even during the ballads "Mother, Father" and "Open Arms".
It became evident that the band loved the crowd right back! They looked relaxed and were clearly having as much fun as the crowd! Charismatic front man Juan cranked up the mojo to 11 and the women in the front row loved it! One got even closer than the front row! During "Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin", lucky contest winner Jessica sang Journey on the radio for the chance to come up on stage and have Juan sing that to her personally! The rest of the band kicked it up a few notches as well. Jonny’s guitar solos were blistering and of course every girl in the first couple of rows thought he was playing just to them. Berto steadly kept the beat and played with a fire I have not seen before. Casey? The energy of the crowd fired him up to the point that he broke a string! A first in Lights history! Even Jon, filling in on boards for Jeff, got in some licks that just added something special. All five guys really looked like they were having a blast and threw the energy given to them by the crowd right back out to them.

By the time the band came back for their second set, the energy level was at a fever pitch! During "Don’t Stop Believing" people were up on each others shoulders and a couple of them were crowd surfing! No one wanted the night to end and when it looked like it might, the crowd started chanting for "Wheel in the Sky". Maybe everyone was so excited, they did not realize it was the song the band opened with 2 hours earlier. Always a band for the fans, the guys obliged and played the song again, this time with the volume of the crowd turned up to 15! It was an amazing end to what was hands down the best Lights show I have ever seen!

After the show, I stood and took in the atmosphere. The crowd was smiling and buzzing! I wondered if they knew, like I did, that they had just witnessed something special. Sure, the Chico fans have no other shows to compare this one to but did they know just how good that show was? I did want to know what they thought. So I went back to ask those two people I had talked to before the show. Remember Claudia, the skeptical fan who was comparing Journey tribute bands? She ran up to me after the show, shouting "Oh My God!" She was amazed! She was not old enough to have seen Journey with Steve Perry. However, she closed her eyes during the Lights show and feels she knows what it was like to see Journey back in the day. Raymond, the long time Journey fan, was so impressed he left during the second set to go home to get his two young sons so that they could stand outside the door to hear what their dad was raving about. He said that he wanted his sons to get "as close to the classic Journey" as they could and that "Lights were it"! He even asked the band to pose for pictures with him and his family! Jessica, the contest winner was still giggling with her girlfriends over Juan singing to her when I saw her hour and a half after the fact! The Barista at the Starbucks across the street was talking about the show the next morning, stating he went out on his break to listen and wished he had taken off to go over to hear from the inside! Lights certainly made an impression on those that were there and left the crowd talking in excited anticipation about when the band would be back.

What happens when you take the familiar and add the unfamiliar? Would it be as good as you expect it to be or even better? Would the newbies know just what they are witnessing? In the case of Lights and the town of Chico, you have one amazing band and one great night that was well worth the 7-hour drive. The people at LaSalle’s have found their new favorite band and hopefully will become as familiar with them as I am. That is definitely a good thing!