By John Reed
While most things in Rock change and evolve, and not always for the better,
Joan Jett pretty much stays the same.
As she has been in the game for nearly 30 years now, she had had many chances to sell out, sex-it-up, or jump at one of the numerous Runaways reunion tour offers. She has instead chose to keep her standards and marched at her own power chord driven path and her reputation in the rock world is one of the more respected ones ever.
Playing to a near capacity crowd at the legendary Avalon club in Boston on October 13, 2006, Jett literally ripped through a 20 song set that was, as her manager Kenny Laguna promised, an "amazing balance" of songs from her popular catalogue alongside cuts from her fantatic new CD Sinner.
Looking fit and appearing amazingly physically unchanged, Jett and her latest incarnation of the Blackhearts sounded tight, which is unusual as this was only the second date of her current fall/winter tour, which kicked off the night before in Philadelphia.
In an unexpected move; two songs into her set and Jett tore into the familiar and killer opening riff of the Runaways classic "Cherry Bomb." While she often plays it live, its appearance early was a surprise. While one would usually expect that for an encore, it was a great choice and brought the, at first, semi-sedate Boston audience to her full attention.
As promised, Jett peppered the set with some great re-workings of classics as "Do You Wanna Touch" and "Bad Reputation" (which has become extra cool to hear, as it was the theme song to the cult classic TV show Freaks and Geeks). An expectedly raw and a powerful rendition of her ode to obsessed
love "I Hate Myself for Lovin' You" was also impressive as Jett‚s passionate delivery was on the mark, as you could almost her channel the self loathing the main character in the song is obviously dealing with.
And while Jett has been famous in the past for her interpretations of other artists songs, she brought out a couple of new ones from Sinner. Hot cover of Sweets of „A.C.D.C." and The Replacements "Androgynous" did fit in well with her set, and she even managed too best Sweet‚s original vision of
the song - no small feet to do!
While she got a bit political at times (complete with some sound bites from George W. Bush himself), she also got as primal as she could on the lyrically hard "Fetish." Though the song was seemingly lost on some audience members, it was a reminder of how Jett can get as down and dirty as any male in Rock.
And, of course, she would be the first to tell you that she has a first rate backing band in the Blackhearts. The ever reliable Dougie Needles was refined, but, flashy when he had to be on his lead guitar licks while drummer Thommy Price kept the pacing of the set in high gear as his drumming was, as always powerful, yet tasteful. Kicking in hard when need (as on "I Love Rock and Roll") and restrained when he needed be ("Crimson and Clover").
Her set was rounded up appropriately with a cover of the Boston-laced lyrics
of Jonathan Richman‚s "Roadrunner" and her show ending take on Sly and the
Family Stones "Everyday People." While hardly a rock song in its original
from by Sly, Jett transformed the song so well in 1983 that over the years
it has become more identified with her than Sly now.
Maybe it is so much more her song now as it sums her up so well. She is a
rock chick and that is all she wants to be. By ducking many lucrative
offers to sell her songs to commercials and by not appearing in the many (no
doubt cheesy) movie offers that have come her way, she continues be that
rarest of artist that truly represents musical integrity.
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