June 2009 Vegas trip report V : Mark Farner still funkin

This is the fifth entry in a series detailing our June 16 - 21 Vegas trip. On Saturday June 20, we attended the Junefest rock concert at South Point Casino that featured Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad fame. Grand Funk Railroad was one of the premier early to mid 70's rock bands and one of my primary favorites as a teenager. They were often blasting out their hits on my home stereo system and countless times my parents admonished me to "turn that noise off !" . Fortunately I had a system that included earphones. Farner was the unquestionable inspirational force, lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist in one of history's most successful live performance rock bands from 1969 - 1976 and a group that has produced 15 gold and 12 platinum records. The group originally disbanded in 1976 but incurred brief reunions that provided some successful results including a world tour for two years in the late 90's. In 1971 this group set an attendance record at Shea Stadium that still stands to this day and included a ticket sell-out in 72 hours which was faster than the famous Beatles performance achieved at that venue. Farner has continually remained active in a solo career and tour that includes renditions of all the old Grand Funk hits and his career has now spanned over 40 years.

This performance was classic Farner funk along with his band NrG and included such tunes as "We're An American Band", "Rock and Roll Soul", " Some Kind Of Wonderful ", and "The Locomotion". The strength of Farner's vocals is still present and he still hits those fast , furious, and funky guitar licks that are so recognizable from the original days and recordings. Personal aspects that emerged from Farner in his on-stage comments were his appreciation for  working class people and sincere respect for the welfare of our servicemen abroad. The crowd roused an encore performance of the classic hit "Closer To Home" as the finale tune and the South Point Arena assumed some sort of spiritual aura as this song was performed. Despite a technical difficulty that forced Farner to actually change guitars after the song commenced, it was an exciting finale and all I could think was "funkin A!". I was fortunate enough to meet and shake hands with this rock legend and felt honored to tell him face-to-face how much I appreciated his music and message. To our pleasure, we have no qualms that Farner will keep on funkin.

Cheers...

Charles Higgins