Sun 3/2 @ 9PM
It’s hard to overestimate the influence Lou Reed had on Cleveland’s music scene.
The city’s storied underground of the ’70s sprang from the minds of musicians who worshipped Lou Reed and his mega-influential band the Velvet Underground. It seemed like every member of that scene was at the legendary Velvet Underground concert at Cleveland’s La Cave in 1968 (or at least claimed they were). One of that scene’s most prominent and catalytic players, Peter Laughner, died in 1977 at age 24 in large part from trying to emulate his concept of Reed’s lifestyle, based on his lyrics.
Maybe Reed really did do all that stuff. Last May he had a liver transplant at the Cleveland Clinic — how appropriate that Cleveland extended his physical life a well as his musical impact. But he succumbed to disease in October.
As part of its 14th anniversary weekend, the Beachland is hosting a tribute to Reed. Appropriately, it’s headlined by a reconstituted version of one of those ’70s Cleveland underground bands, Jamie Klimek’s Mirrors. “We were about as close to a Velvet Underground as you can get,” Klimek once said.
The band is now sporting a four-guitar lineup and sounds as powerful as ever. They played the Beachland in January, on one of the way-too-many nights we’ve had recently when terrible weather kept people home. You now have another chance. Don’t blow it.
Also on the bill is local pop/rock historian/collector/radio host Dave Swanson’s power-pop ensemble Rainy Day Saints, another local band worth catching. Swanson’s got a catalogue of some of the most tuneful and pop-savvy songs you’ll hear anywhere, and this band of experienced players — which includes the ubiquitous Pickering Brothers and sax player Marianne Friend who played with the Adults in the ’80s — more than does them justice.
Akron-raised, Chicago-based Kevin Junior — formerly of symphonic power op band Chamber Strings — rounds out the bill with some “friends.”
It’s free.