David
Lynch and Ringo Starr at the David Lynch Foundation's benefit honoring
Ringo Starr with the 'Lifetime of Peace & Love' award at the El Rey
Theatre in Los Angeles.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
For his 68th birthday last night, director David Lynch threw a party for Ringo Starr. More precisely, the David Lynch Foundation
for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace gave Starr the
not-made-up-at-all "Lifetime of Peace and Love Award." Which meant that
Lynch's foundation wanted to honor the peace-loving Starr as a pioneer
of transcendental meditation and promote their own good works in
teaching meditation to school children and military veterans. Since
those worthy notions were packaged with an all-star romp through some of
Starr's catalog, the crowd at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles could
go home feeling that every one of them had all they needed.
Paul McCartney
and Yoko Ono sent videos in which they declared their Ringo-love, while
Lynch gave a short speech that began "In all the galaxies of peace and
love, Ringo is a giant star" and ended with "Hurray for Ringo!" Starr
took the stage and discussed his own history with transcendental
meditation: in 1968, when the Beatles
studied with the Maharishi, they became poster children for the
movement. "He was so full of joy," Starr said of the Maharishi, "I said,
'I want some of that.'" Starr acknowledged that he had let his own
practice lapse for months and sometimes years since then, but said that
for the past four years, he had been meditating "364 days a year."
Accepting the award – before handing it back to Lynch because it was too
heavy – Starr peered into the audience and said that it was "great to
see a lot of people I know out there. And three of them are meditating."
The hour-long show had a stellar house band: Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
on keyboards, Steve Lukather (Toto) and Peter Frampton on guitar, Kenny
Aronoff (John Mellencamp's band) on drums, and Don Was on bass. Was,
who also served as musical director, was sporting dark glasses, a beard,
and a long scarf with orange tassels. He looked amused and louche
throughout the whole show, as if he had stumbled onstage on his way to a
somewhat more decadent party.
The house band's starpower eclipsed that of some of the
featured performers, such as Jesse Elliott and Lindsay Giles of Ark
Life, who started the show with a bluesy version of "Can't Do It Wrong"
(a deep cut from Starr's 2010 album Y Not).
"Octopus's Garden" got a faithful version courtesy of three of the six
members in the Head and the Heart (Josiah Johnson, Jonathan Russell, and
Charity Rose Thielen – half the band showed up, but they never
clarified whether they were the Head or the Heart.) Brendan Benson of
the Raconteurs tackled "Don't Go Where the Road Don't Go (another deep
cut, from 1992's Time Takes Time). Benson turned up the heat somewhat, meaning that he inspired Was to stand up.
Soul legend Bettye LaVette announced "This is also my 50th
year in show business – this is the best band I've ever had." After
saying "I hope those aren't the lyrics, because I can't see 'em," she
reprised her own cover of the Starr single "It Don't Come Easy." Slow,
sultry, and powerful, it was the standout performance of the night. By
the time LaVette was done, "we can make it work out better" sounded like
the wisdom of the ancients.
Ben Folds, with an electric keyboard on a stand rather
than his preferred grand piano, joked that he "wouldn't play an ironing
board for anyone but Ringo." Then he did a killer version of "Oh My My,"
romping through Starr's boogie-woogie composition and attacking that
keyboard with his elbow, to the visible amusement and pleasure of the
house band. Ben Harper contributed a heartfelt take on "Walk With You"
(also from Y Not).
Then Joe Walsh came out and told the crowd that everything up to that
point was "the quiet part" of the evening, and backed it up with a heavy
metal version of "Back Off Boogaloo."
Starr came back onstage for three songs. The first,
"Photograph," was fine. Then he said, "I need to go play something on
the drums, so you can see I can still hold the sticks," and delivered a
thrilling, perfect version of "Boys" (the Shirelles B-side covered by
the Beatles). Starr, who has been singing "Boys" since his days in
Liverpool's Cavern Club, observed that he had been doing the song longer
than most of the audience had been alive – but he still tackled it with
the glee of a teenager. The show ended with a sloppy singalong version
of "With a Little Help from My Friends," including the show's array of
performers – plus other random audience members, including Sheila E.,
Edgar Winter, and Jim Carrey.
As a coda, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti gave framed
certificates to both Lynch and Starr. Lynch then recited an
inspirational verse over a guitar drone, strictly instructing guitarist
Steve Lukather, "One chord, Lukather."
"Very bossy on your birthday," Starr joked.
Starr concluded the evening by asking for donations to the
David Lynch Foundation and touting the benefits of meditation with a
classic Ringoism: "Meditation was started thousands of years ago – and I
was there."
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