Recap by Keavin Wiggins

Day Three.

On the third day of antiFEST we moved things over to The Cat Club on the strip in Hollywood. 

Unfortunately,  I crashed so hard when I got home at 6 am after Saturday’s show, I didn’t wake up until 7 PM!  I scrambled to get ready and raced up the 5 FWY (I live about 50 miles south of Hollywood).  By the time I got to the Cat Club the first two acts Frank Countryman and Julie Sadoain had already completed their sets. Harry and a few other people who saw their sets said they both were great. Sorry Frank and Julie I wish I could say more about your performance but I simply wasn’t there! (My fault, I should have set the alarm clock) 

What can you say about Tishara? She is not only gorgeous (She’s Ms. Hawaiian Tropic) but she has an amazing voice. Following the unplugged nature of the night thus far, Tishara stood along on stage with just her guitar and a microphone and sang her heart out. She has a key sense of melody as her original songs showed but her voice is what brought the people out to see her on this night. Think Jewel without the twang and with a bit more power and you have an idea of what Tishara sounds like. 

After a couple of encores Tishara left the stage to make way for the big rock from Long Beach that was about to descend on The Cat Club.  I’m talking about the band that gives you a big bowl of rock n’ roll – Johnny Jones and The Suffering Haloes! 

Johnny Jones and his able partners in crime take us back to the days where rock was king, FM radio meant “album rock” and AM was Top 40, guys had longer hair than their girlfriends and kids packed stadiums to see their guitar heroes bring the rock!  Johnny knows what he likes and isn’t about to mellow out or sellout to fit what constitutes rock in this day and age. To him it’s almost like a holy mission to keep the rock honest, powerful and to kick the ass of every single person in the audience! 

It was a bit of a radical change going from the unplugged Tishara to the full throttle rock of Johnny Jones and the Suffering Haloes but even Tishara could be seen dancing in the isles as Johnny and his crew rocked the Cat Club!  They came to rock and that’s exactly what they did! They did Long Beach and antiFEST proud and proved once again, when it comes to rockin’ you can’t beat Johnny Jones--Long Beach’s messiah of guitar rock! 

I’m not quite sure what happened next. The Cat Club’s owner Slim Jim Phantom (yes the dude from the Stray Cats) was set to rock the house with his band The Starfuckers. Slim Jim and Starfuckers guitarist Gilby Clarke were in the house but never hit the stage. I still don’t know what happened. It could have been one of the members of the group cancelled out at the last minute? I really don’t know.  But that was ok because it gave Happenin’ Harry and the Haptones that much more time to rock the house with their renditions of classic hard rock and metal songs. 

Every Sunday Harry puts together an all-star jam to closeout his weekly Hellhole show at the Cat Club. From week to week you never know who is going to drop by and jam with the Haptones, over the years some of the biggest names in rock have joined Harry and gave the Cat Club crowd “happenin’” covers of some of their favorite songs. 

On this night Harry was joined by Joe Pitro (Sonic Jungle), Mark Zavon, Mike Duda (W.A.S.P.), and regular Haptones skin-basher Tiny.  As the set progressed and Harry and company threw out some kick ass covers of AC/DC and Deep Purple some other notible musicians snuck in the backdoor including Joe LeSte' of Beautiful Creatures, Taimie Downe of The Newlydeads and Faster Pussycat and even Phil Solem of the Rembrandts stopped by to jam a few songs. 

The Haptones were in rare form that night and the finale included Tiny, Mike Duda and Phil Solem providing the music as Harry and Joe LeSte' threw down an unbelievable duet of Bon Scott era AC/DC tunes. 

A great time was had by all and I was a bit sad as I drove home that night because it was all over but one thing is for sure, anyone who attended antiFEST ’02 will not soon forget it!   I can’t wait to do it all again!  You’ll be there right?