There are many advantages to living in central Iowa. For a city boy like myself, it goes beyond learning that food, washing machines and fuel didn’t merely come from stores.
My learning experience here includes something I had worshiped from a young age: rock n’ roll.
Even though Des Moines or other Iowa cities don’t manage to draw in every major 70s and 80s rock act, the state and cities in surrounding states are in the path of plenty of talent as it crisscrosses the country. I’m in awe of the number of my childhood heroes my girlfriend and I been able to see in the Hawkeye State and in nearby cities — mostly at a reasonable cost.
I completely see how the 80/35 music festival got its name. The intersecting, flat, straight highways of the Midwest naturally lend themselves to buses and vans filled with band equipment and exhausted musicians — some still to prove themselves in some way, established ones still paying the bills in the best way they know and others simply in love with playing live music.
While I’d really like to embrace the 80/35 Music Festival and newer original music in general, I only recognized a handful of band names in this year’s lineup, so it’s still clear any band from Nirvana’s genre or newer is not for me. This means I’m getting old, but it’s also further proof to me that with a few exceptions, such as Highly Suspect, few post-1991 musicians put very little effort into crafted music.
Since Jacqui and I moved to central Iowa, we’ve seen dozens of our favorite musicians and a handful of really great cover bands. Just since the beginning of 2016, there has been Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, Joe Satriani, Blue Oyster Cult, Boston, Kansas, Ratt, Lita Ford, The Bret Michaels Band and Grand Funk Railroad. Still ahead are Journey and the Doobie Brothers and perhaps one or more of the free-stage and grandstand Iowa State Fair shows.
Some critics like to tear apart some of our favorite bands as washed-up has-beens that don’t have the looks or voice or stamina of yesteryear, but I don’t care about much of that. There are a handful of bands that just seem tired, slowed down and unenergetic, but for the most part, our brand of music is timeless, and the people still performing look like they really love the music and being on stage.
I’ve really liked some local bands as well, such as Slipstream. Des Moines-area band Gimikk and the karaoke backing trio Party! Party! do some outstanding covers, as do some groups from neighboring states, such as 3D In Your Face and Ladies of the 80s.
Grand Funk Railroad, the band that headlined the second day of this year’s Des Moines Arts Festival, has been playing nationwide since the late 1960s. You can’t play together for more than 40 years and not be good at it. Their polished, manicured and smoothed-out ways of delivering the songs actually makes the music sound better than it did on the original vinyl.
Some groups were either smart enough or simply fortunate in painting timeless, simple tapestries of sound that can be played not only by aging musicians, but also by a completely different group of folks. There are multiple prongs of several bands — such as Ratt — out performing hits this summer, and because the songs were so well crafted, each group of relative newcomers can blast a rock sound of beauty out into the Iowa sky.
There might be plenty of great music in the big cities on the coasts, but the crossroads and highways are thankfully in between.
Contact Jason W. Brooks
at jbrooks@newtondailynews.com