Photo credit: Tia Haygood, Ross Halfin, Trudi Knight
Mott The Hoople
The world has changed dramatically since 1974 when Mott the Hoople last played Milwaukee, and so has the band. Guitarist Mick Ralphs suffered a stroke; bassist Overend Watts and drummer Dale “Buffin” Griffin are dead. And yet Mott the Hoople at the Miller High Life Theatre, April 1, was a credible version of the band’s classic lineup. Ariel Bender still played guitar and Morgan Fisher remained on piano. Most of all, Ian Hunter fronted the band.
As Mott’s principal songwriter and vocalist, Hunter always confounded the algorithms by achieving a more or less harmonious blend of Bob Dylan and Keith Richards, with a patina of glam and dollop of fanciful ’50s rock ’n’ roll showmanship. Mott’s Milwaukee concert, the first night of an eight-city North American tour, echoed with those disparate influences. When he wasn’t in deep Dylan mode on songs such as “I Wish I Was Your Mother,” Hunter was sharp, sardonic and demonstrably British in voice and attitude. Mott was punk just before the definition congealed into three chords and a haircut.
The near-operatic “Marionette” was a cogent putdown of corporate rock stars who think they are the ones pulling the wires. Mott went Clockwork Orange on “Crash Street Kids” and “Violence” (“it’s the only thing that will make them see sense”).
Two months shy of age 80, Hunter was fit and exuberant, his face still half-hidden by those trademark Lou Reed shades and a mop of curly hair turned gray. His center-stage dominance was challenged by Bender, whose foppish whirl and twirl acted out memories of the band’s glam-rock phase.
For the first half of the show it was tempting to say that Mott’s old pieces snapped back together and generated the songs—deep cuts alongside “Honaloochie Boogie” and other hits—more or less as the audience remembered. But the momentum built and by the time Mott performed their version of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane,” the energy over-spilled the mold and Mott achieved the chaotic focus of a great rock band live and in the moment. The fireball continued on “Walking With a Mountain,” as Hunter briefly traded acoustic guitar for electric and Bender unleashed blistering blues distortion amidst Chuck Berry and Dave Davies riffs.
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Mott the Hoople gave a superb performance that also gave the audience what it came to hear. The final encore, “All the Young Dudes,” was suffused with the melancholy of nostalgia. Once the brash young band for a mini-generation a few years too young for the 1960s, Mott the Hoople survives as a living reminder of a particular moment in time. On several occasions between songs, Bender referred to “the class of ’74.” Mott the Hoople were its valedictorians.
