Let The Sun Never Blind Your Eyes! Alice in Chains Live 8/14/2022.

The time:  August 14, 2022

The place:  Jones Beach Theater

As the date indicates, this entry is belated by over a month and a half.

The Alice in Chains / Breaking Benjamin / Bush concert was the first trek we made from Westchester to Long Island.  Susan was nervous about the trip there and back, so she reserved a room at a small hotel a hop, skip, and jump from the theater.

What a marvel Google Maps can be!  We plotted a course which wound from Yonkers to the northeast Bronx across the Whitestone Bridge and through the Guyland to our destination.  As we passed my old neighborhood of Co-Op City, I flipped a very pronounced middle finger to that spot of purgatory that sinks under sea level an inch a year (or so I’m told) thanks to the salt impregnated landfill upon which the apartment complex is perched.

Suze’s fears were calmed - somewhat - when we entered the neighborhood where our hotel was located.  “Thin Blue Line” banners were posted at nearly every private home and accompanied by Old Glory.  Nothing new to us.  We’ve seen them in our neighborhood.  We’ve seen everything from MAGA flags (now conspicuously gone since Jan 6, 2021) to Biden / Harris banners dotting up the hill near where we live.

Returning to the moment, I wrinkled my nose snobbishly at the unremarkable exterior of the hotel and the adjoining seafood restaurant.  Suze told me to reserve my judgement until we entered the establishment.  In contrast, the lobby was quite ornate and had a friendly atmosphere.  As Susan settled matters with the front desk, my attention was drawn to the minor key, morose guitar drone coming from the lobby speaker.  I immediately recognized it!  It was “Rotten Apple” by Alice in Chains - the very headlining band we had ventured all this way to see.  I drew Susan’s attention to the music.  I asked the front desk if this was to welcome guests who are arriving for the AIC show at Jones Beach.  The front desk shrugged and said, “I think our guy at the desk this morning set it.”

We entered our room.  It was small, spartan, and yet quite clean.  The ceiling was canted due to the peaked roof of the building.  The bathroom was well equipped and the bed itself was spacious enough.  With an alarm on Suze’s watch set for an audible chime, we collapsed on the bed, myself spooning Susan, to save our strength for the show.

About two hours later, we were woken by the chime.  Each of us put on our Alice in Chains T-shirts that we purchased at one of their shows in 2015.  Mine features a grey and fall orange of two female figures curled in fetal positioned and superimposed over a skull.  The caption “Hollow” was printed beneath the art.  Susan’s shirt sported a bare branched tree with a bright moon with the band’s name printed in an eerie thin font.  The funny thing is in spite of the autumnal imagery on our shirts, we have always seen AIC’s shows in the summer time.

We hopped into the car and drove to Jones Beach theater relatively early.  Amid the sprawling car park we found a spot near the theater.  The temperature was warm and dry, so perfect.  Suze took in the parking area and the number of the spot we occupied “Section G, spot something or other.”  I swaggered to the refreshment stands, chest thrust out to show off my “Hollow” shirt with Susan ambling behind me.  We found a hot dog stand sponsored by a local ration station.  Much to my surprise and to Susan’s, the frank and fries plate we ordered was free.  I guess the radio station was footing the bill.  We enjoyed the snack and peered at the large venue in the distance.  “Nice tee!” someone shouted, pointing at my “Hollow” shirt.  I said, “Thank you!” with a grin not unlike the woman in the old commercial for the Ritz Thrift Shop.  You don’t need a million to look like a million!

We ran through the ritual of scanning the phone tickets and proceeding to the theater, which was packing up rapidly.  Business first, we found our seats.  The small opening act was a band from L.A. called “The L.I.F.E. Project.”  The girl singer did a dead-on cover of Anthrax’s “Caught in a Mosh.”  There was no mosh pit to be seen.

Still hungry, we grabbed some chicken fingers and lemonade and returned to our seats.  The next band up was… Bush.

Let me tell you about my impressions of the band dating back to 1993.

I thought Bush were a bunch of sissies trying to ape the Seattle “grunge” sound popularized by Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and other contemporary acts.  Their first single “Everything Zen” was sung with frontman Gavin Rossdale’s bleary, minorish voice.  When I watched the video for that song among the other singles they released during the 90s, I would roll my eyes and think, “Wusses.”

Flash forward to the present.  Bush exploded on to the stage with “The Kingdom,” a track from their latest album which came out in 2020.  Bush had been waylaid by COVID as did every other band who planned to tour live that year and the year following.  So Bush… shocked me.

Gavin Rossdale had grown a firm yet lean pair of arm muscles since his days as a spindly man waif in the 90s.  His face was no longer baby smooth, replaced by the well hewn features of a man in his fifties.  He strode around the stage with the charisma of a revival tent preacher.  With his band backing him, two years of chomping at the bit and an eagerness to hit the road rushed forth.

Then he ran out into the audience.

I laughed joyously.  Firstly at the sight of Rossdale surging up and down every aisle in the lower, then upper seating at Jones Beach.  Secondly at the security team tailing after him to make sure he didn’t trip and fall flat on his face during his quest for a contact high.  I really felt for that security team.  I don’t think it was the first time they had to tail a frontman who wanted to bathe himself in the presence of his devoted audience.  *Radio static*  We have a runner.  Thinks he’s the messiah.  Make sure he’s safe.  *Radio static*

By the time Rossdale reached the aisle nearest to our own, I took a picture.  My attitude toward Bush had changed in mere minutes.

After Bush left the stage, I turned to Suze and said, “Honey, I take back EVERYTHING I’ve said about Bush.”

There was a break between Bush and Breaking Benjamin hitting the stage, so we thought it would be a good time to hit the merch table and pick up some new AIC shirts.  The line for the table moved so slowly that Breaking Benjamin started their set.  No big deal, I thought, we weren’t there for them.  Susan picked out a standard tee.  I scanned the shirts on display and my attention was drawn to a long sleeved shirt a hint thicker than the tee I was already wearing.  I thought:  Fall’s around the corner (Ugh.  Fall.  As I write this the skies are grey, the air is cold, and the rain is depressing).  This long sleeve would be a good choice to show off as the leaves change and the flimsy number I’m wearing now would not be appropriate.  I’m wearing this long sleeved tee even now.  I like it.  It’s appropriate for the Northwest Pacific-esque weather we’re presently experiencing.

With our purchases, we returned to our seats about a third of the way through Breaking Benjamin’s set.  This band was… decent.  It was a sound I would have reveled to if I was… twenty?  Thirty years younger?  Speaking of reveling, there were three teenage or twenty something boys a few rows down that had been standing, smiling, and swaying raucously ever since The L.I.F.E. Project took the stage before sundown.  At first I was annoyed.  Then I thought, in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s voice, “Was I any different when I was young?”  Perhaps I was annoyed as I am slowly becoming a crumugeon of an old fart that envies youth and vigor.

Benjamin’s front man shared stories of how he had first seen both Bush and AIC when he was a wee lad of eighteen at Lollapalooza.  Lollapalooza!  Lollapalooza ’93 to be precise, when I had been a lad of twenty and AIC’s original frontman, the late Layne Staley, prowled the stage.  Was I really that old?  Were the kids on stage actually closet to my age?  Am I still young even as I bring the fifth decade of my life to a close to begin anew?

Breaking Benjamin left the stage.  Now it was time to see the headlining act for the wizened codgers like myself.  I grew fidgety in my seat.  The teen or twenty something in me felt the urge to crowd surf down the multiple tiers of the venue all the way up to the stage.  That of course was not going to happen.  This was not an all day festival like Lollapalooza with no seats and swarming hormones.  I’d spill onto the walkway beneath the upper tiers of seating and crack the bridge of my nose open.  I guess this is not happening.

With a background lit an eerie purple and orange,  Alice in Chains commanded the stage.  They began with “Again,” a track from their third album commonly known as Three-Legged Dog.  Everyone young and not so old swayed in their seats, singing along to this percussive, menacing song.  Suze did not know the lyrics, but she was more into acts like Lush and Cocteau Twins rather than AIC back in the nineties.

About Alice in Chain’s vocals.  Singer William DuVall and singer / guitarist Jerry Cantrell have mastered a haunting minor key harmony that you wouldn’t associate with a rock act.  Most rock and pop acts try to stay in the major key and squeal at a near-falsetto pitch.  Not so with AIC.  Their singing is a weird interweaving of tenor and baritone.  Even their up tempo songs are like a lamentation to could apply to anyone’s dear departed friend or lost love or even the perennial dark night of the soul.  Alice in Chains is there to comfort you.

“Grind” is another song from Three Legged Dog which captivates me.  AIC performed with a churning, stomping riff, with a dolorous lead guitar.  Once again, the tenor/baritone harmonics:

In the darkest hole

You’d be well advised

Not to plan my funeral

‘Fore the body dies, yeah…

Come the morning light, 

It's a see through show

What you may have heard 

And what you think you know, yeah…

Let the sun never blind your eyes!

Let me sleep so my teeth won't grind!

Hear a sound from a voice inside…

“Grind” is a plea for solace in a world that can bear down on your shoulders and bow your head.  The lines of the chorus never fail to sent a current through the roots of the hairs on my scalp.

I sang along, with Susan marveling at how my tenor blended with the band on stage.  A few rows down, the boisterous teen / twenty somethings sang as well, their arms stretching and their fingers clawing for comfort just out of reach…

Or maybe they were just having a good fucking time.

AIC did their standards, “Man in the Box,” “Your Decision,” “Them Bones,” all the lyrics I knew chapter and verse.  Suze sang along helpfully with the songs from their catalog that she knew well.  She wasn’t totally out of the loop.  She loves Chains in her own way.

The show wound up, and we played Beat-the-Crowd-to-the-Parking-Lot-Before-We-Get-Stuck-in-the-Traffic-for-Hours.  We didn’t quite make it to the finish line, and we may have waited about fifteen minutes before we hit the open road, but exit we did.  Susan was a little tense during the gridlock, but my sonorous voice gave her solace - as if Jerry Cantrell was in the passenger seat next to her.

On the way back to the hotel, Suze was excitedly telling me about a plan for she and I putting together an AIC cover band called Chains in a Box.  I told her I loved the monicker.  Will we do it?  Won’t we?  We’ll see.  Don’t plan our funerals ’til our bodies die.

We slept well at the hotel, and the following day we went down to the hotel lobby to nab a donut and some coffee for the trip home.  We saw other parties exiting wearing Alice in Chains tee shirts.  We conversed with them briefly as brothers and sisters under the skin.  We said our farewells to them and finally hit the road back home.

Suze and I sang two part harmonies for the AIC songs we both knew and gushed excitedly about the distinct possibility of starting Chains in a Box.  Hear a sound from a voice inside.  The weather was balmy and inviting for a dip in our building’s pool in the afternoon after we got our bearings.

Lament with us, rejoice with us, celebrate with us.

- JJB