Dear "Miami Music Festival,"
It's bad enough you've come back for a second year after falling on your face last time out, but really, your big surprise headliner for Friday night's free show at Bayfront Park is the Spin Doctors?
Surely with the amount of coin you're spending to fly in the Spin Doctors and rent Bayfront for the night, you could have gotten a band who have had a hit after 1992. Surely, you could have hired one of the many million selling acts who have a connection with Miami, rather than hiring a disconnected one from New Jersey. Surely, you must know that most of the local media are on record saying that you are suspect at best, and a cruel joke at worst. Surely you know you needed to make a splash with your headliner to give your sketchy, mostly pay-to-play event some much needed credibility.
But instead, you got the Spin Doctors.
Back in 1991,I saw the Spin Doctors play the University of Miami patio. Their brand of vanilla pudding funk was eaten up by the birkenstock-clad college hippies who circle danced around me, half of whom had probably seen them up north at the Wetlands club in New York City. The Spin Doctors were semi-tolerable then, but at least their brand of music was relevant at the time. At least they were on the upside of their career, and not the racetrack and casino act they are today.
I don't mean to beat up on the Spin Doctors. Time and frozen vocal chords have done that already. Hippy funk nostalgia acts have their place. Just not as the headliner of a festival that invokes Miami's name. The Magic City has a rich musical history. We deserve better. Even from you.
Sincerely,
Buy A. Clue
Huh...?
I always thought the Spins' were a tight, rockin' outfit, full of excellent musicianship and solid song writing...and performing too.
You're probably right, though; this is Miami, and there's no place for that here. Get Pitbull out here...
Posted by: Chuck Ross | 11/13/2010 at 02:27 PM
Chuck,
I'm sorry you've never heard an actual "rockin' outfit." Perhaps you should swing by the Fillmore tonight and see Social Distortion for a primer on "rockin' outfits"
The Spin Doctors are to rock, what miller lite is to beer. A watered down facsimile of the real thing.
Posted by: Bowker | 11/13/2010 at 05:31 PM