Tuesday, March 3, 1998
Techno-blues group A3 revival makes everyone into believers
MUSIC Band members preach ‘Elvis religion’ as performance rocks
crowd
By Mike Prevatt
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Despite the unfortunate closing of the electronica club
Frequency at the Hollywood Athletic Club on Friday night,
country-techno-gospel-acid-house-blues band A3 threw a 75-minute
revival that was anything but sad and reflective.
A3, better known in their native England as Alabama 3, converted
the initially still and only slightly interested club-goers into
believers Friday night as they revealed their plan to save the
world: A 12-step plan with the word of the King … Elvis
himself.
Yep. A3, comprised of 11 or so band members, are led by two
charismatic singers with a schtick that is indeed the oddest in pop
music today: The Very Reverend Dr. D Wayne Love and lead vocalist
Larry Love. Through the Reverend’s evangelistic-style preachings
and Love’s Leonard Cohen-like vocal deliveries, it’s blues in the
church house with A3, who take country gospel blues and layer it
with acid house and techno beats. This infectious and curious sound
serves as the musical background for the preaching of A3’s
"religion," which prays to The First Presleytarian Church of Elvis
the Divine (U.K.), worshipping the King himself.
But behind the silliness and the exaggerated performances of the
Reverend, whose vocal musings and crude oratories on the church was
often lost upon onlookers not familiar with A3, never took away
from Love’s ultracool vocals and onstage presence, or the hypnotic
music which boomed throughout the Hollywood Athletic Club in a
laid-back but un-ignorable way.
A3 came on stage after 11 p.m. to a crowd roaming from dance
floor to dance floor, looking for the right techno rhythms and
electronic-based pop hooks to groove to. As Larry Love and the
Reverend appeared, people in the front reached out to touch them a
la Jimmy Swaggert style. Unfortunately, the preachings came out
muffled through the speaker system, losing a few of the audience
members just on-hand to dance. The Reverend proved he was no
ordinary man of the church, standing over the edge of the stage and
shoving his hand down his pants while holding a beer in the
other.
The Reverend’s verbosity ranged from crowd-rousing ("Acid House
is in the house!") and humorous to self-congratulatory and
presumptuous, as he hinted that his style of country blues would be
delivered the same way by Hank Williams had Williams lived to see
1998. Well, he could be right.
The Reverend didn’t go out of his way to act or talk like a rock
star, except when he introduced the foot-stomping "Ain’t Goin’ To
Goa" as "a worldwide fuckin’ smash!" His character was more out of
a cheesy movie, making A3’s whole aura more fun than the usual
concert fare.
Several tracks off of A3’s debut release, "Exile on Coldharbour
Lane," were featured, including the very danceworthy "Goa," the
bluesy "Woke Up This Morning" and the honky-tonk majesty of "U
Don’t Dans To Tekno Anymore."
But not all of A3’s pseudo gospel-hour performance was all camp.
Strip away the ’12-step plan’ and A3 is still a top performance
band, hailed in the U.K. as one of the best live bands around. Lead
vocalist Larry Love displayed an earnestness in his singing that
served as a nice opposite to the Reverend’s ostentatious vocal
delivery, highlighted especially in his aching yet near-perfect
delivery of "Speed of the Sound of Loneliness," one of the more
emotional tracks off "Exile."
Halfway into the show, the seemingly disinterested crowd began
to stomp their feet and wave their hands in the air, especially
with the socialism-driven "Bourgeoisie Blues" and the kinetic "Hypo
Full of Love," performed with intra-band wrestling. Oddly enough,
by the time the band played "Converted," the audience had full-on
succumbed, practicing their faith with dancing and shouting.
For the encore, A3 busted out a rousing version of "Peace in the
Valley," featured on the "A Life Less Ordinary" soundtrack. It
might not have been a fitting end to Frequency and its reign as the
coolest techno club in the land, but its gospel-like textures had
the crowd clapping and stomping their way to the doors.
Call them satirical or wannabe white trash or even just kitschy,
but the A3 electronic hoedown convinced Hollywood the honky tonk
blues can be just as hip as any looped electronica show. Amen.
MICHAEL ROSS WACHT
Larry Love of A3 sings to the crowd at the Frequency.