Illinois Entertainer December 2016 | Page 12

Jon When I first started it 10 years ago, I came up to San Francisco and spent a little time with a really incredible virtu album covers, I wanted to take that onto the stage. And when you started a band in the ‘60s, you always thought that you were making a band to go on tour and go onstage. You never ever thought you’d get the chance to have a hit record or even make an album – you just did it because you loved performing. And here I am, at 72 now, still performing with ARW, and it’s still the same effect. Last night, we played to a packed house in Salt Lake City, and they were standing up for most of the show. And we were playing “Awaken” and “Long Distance Runaround” and 12•2016 al reality guy. And everything was about being able to fly, to swim with dolphins and be part of that dolphin energy, and then get involved in tribal and totem lore – things like that. And that takes a lot of sketching it out, and artistically, I’ve been working with a guy in Poland who’s doing some beautiful computer animation for it. But it’s just going to take time before it’s heard or seen. IE: Have you always seen music visually? JA: Yeah. I always kind of did. When we first got Roger Dean involved in the “Heart of the Sunrise,” and people were just singing along. This music is like a ritual – it’s not something you hear on the radio that much. But it’s still great music. IE: Like Lynyrd Skynyrd with “Free Bird,” do you get tired of audience members shouting for you to play “Roundabout”? JA: Well, we do it as an encore, and it’s fun. It’s just fun to sing that song, even when I’m doing my solo tours. People want to hear it, and I can still sing it. And I know that I’m having a good time. 12 illinoisentertainer.com december 2016 December 2 Childish Gambino Awaken, My Love! Deadmau5 W:/2016Album Jean-Michel Jarre Oxygène 3 John Legend Darkness And Light Pete Doherty Hamburg Demonstrations The Rolling Stones Blue & Lonesome January 13 Dropkick Murphys 11Short Stories... Code Orange Forever Colony House Only The Lonely Egyptrixx Pure, Beyond Reproach Julie Byrne Not Even Happiness Sepultura Machine Messiah Sohn Rennen The Flaming Lips Oczy Mlody The xx I See You You Me At Six Night People Childish Gambino January 20 AFI AFI (The Blood Album) Austra Future Politics Foxygen Hang Mick Harvey Intoxicated Women Shintaro Sakamoto Love If Possible The P roper Ornaments Foxhole Tycho Epoch Dropkick Murphys