Kick Out the Jams: White Lion at the Tailspin, Feb. 26

Saturday night was an exercise in letting go. Letting go is, after all, the Prime Directive of bands like this, and sure enough, we were strongly encouraged from the stage to let down our hair and kick it, get crazy, party all night like there's no tomorrow, etc. So, hell yeah, we did our best to comply as White Lion unleashed a hair-metal onslaught of the standard progressions, straight beats and high-melodrama solos that file all the dangerous edges from our half-century-old western rock tradition.

Actually, the musical predictability probably helped offset the cognitive dissonance that arose from everything else we witnessed in the cavernous Tailspin. The lyrics of Mike Tramp (technically, this is "Tramp's White Lion," an all-new incarnation hired by the original frontman) touch on tolerance and anti-Apartheid themes, while the ghoulish lion's head logo on the T-shirts is overlaid with confederate flag stars and bars. Tramp is from Denmark.

The band was excited. Tramp announced that his men were new and that they were nervous but getting it together, all proud to be part of White Lion. Between songs, he decried a culture that has replaced rock 'n' roll with "newlywed games" and "I want my MTV." The band played a 1984 composition, "Fight to Survive," and Tramp offered some sobering post-song commentary as the last chord faded, saying, "That's right, that's what we do--we fight to survive. That's what we're all about," and it dawned on me that his brand of performance had much in common with that of Liza Minelli. Heavy metal fist in the air, jazz-hands--it's all the same impulse.

Who was at the White Lion show? Lots of folks, including:

Ą A strikingly effeminate guy who groped his girlfriend. His right arm (the one he pumped in the air) was covered with the same flavor-swirl tattooery sported by singer Mike Tramp on his left.

Ą A young woman who, not content with garden-variety exhibitionism, became an exhibitionist of others, first exposing her friend's (?) breast, later yanking down her jeans, and ultimately stopping a bewildered stranger to turn her around and lift her miniskirt.

Ą A Harley-bear with leather vest and sewn patches that advocated peace along with the suggestion to "Speak English or get the fuck out!"

Ą Two smarty-pants, bespectacled, freelance music reviewers, fascinated but withered by a Tailspin scene that was every bit as much the human condition as Coltrane. Let it go, let it go.--Dave Surratt