The Year of Concerts (#25): Nelson
Hello my friend, it sure has been a while...
My very first concert was Nelson in 1991.
I was an avid MTV viewer “back in the day” and saw the video for “Love and Affection” before it took off (and was embraced by squealing teenage girls). I dug the song, and the full “After the Rain” album was just as good.
Matthew and Gunnar Nelson were talented – and had a cool image that promoted positivity. Even if I was mocked for it, I was a huge Nelson fan, with posters from Metal Edge magazine plastered around my bedroom. The band – and it was a band at that time – was loaded with talent, including drummer Bobby Rock, guitarist Brett Garsed, keyboardist Paul Mirkovich and rhythm guitarist Joey Cathcart.
Nelson was the soundtrack of my late teenage years.
The “After the Rain” tour concert set me on my path of a love of live music. It was a fantastic show that I still remember vividly. Unfortunately, not many bootlegs exist from that tour, and the ones that do are terrible quality. I have an audio copy of the show I attended because I befriended the guy next to me who was recording. But it’s distorted throughout and rough to listen to.
I used to have a pretty good cassette boot from a Japanese show, but I lost it somehow over the years (and have never found another copy, no matter how extensively I’ve searched online).
After selling 2 million copies, Geffen Records effectively killed the band. It scrapped the band’s second album, “Imaginator,” which saw the light of day many years later overseas, and had it record “Because They Can.” The album was excellent, but wasn’t the sound Nelson was known for. It started moving in an acoustic, country-ish sound (and probably would have been more successful if the brothers just embraced country music fully at that point).
So, Nelson faded from the public eye. Matthew and Gunnar did several music projects, including a tribute show to their father, Rick Nelson, and released a few more albums under the Nelson name.
But nothing captured that “After the Rain” lightning. They announced maybe six or seven years ago that they were putting the Nelson name to bed. Luckily, they backtracked on that idea.
All this to say, I was surprised when I heard that Nelson was opening for Lita Ford. But man, was I excited to see the show. I saw Matthew and Gunnar with their “Ricky Nelson Remembered” show not too long ago, but hadn’t seen them as a rock band since that ’91 show.
But I wasn’t sure what to expect as the band members would be different.
Paul Mirkovich is currently the musical director for the NBC show “The Voice.” He also is a producer, recently working with pop megastar Taylor Swift. Australian Brett Garsed, while prolific since his time with Nelson, hasn’t been very active in the past decade. Bobby Rock is now the drummer for Lita Ford. Joey Cathcart died in 2021 after a long battle with brain cancer.
Obviously, Matthew and Gunnar Nelson were always the core of the group. But what would “Nelson” sound like with all new players?
I’m happy to say: Pretty damn good.
Nelson played an excellent show that leaned heavily on the “After the Rain” record. Opening with an instrumental intro from the “After the Rain” tour that appeared on the “Imaginator” album as part of the intro “On/Off,” it then tore into “Fill You Up.” This was the same song they opened with when I saw them in 1991.
It was like being a teenager again.
I sang every word of every song loudly and proudly.
“More Than Ever.” “After the Rain.” “Love and Affection.” “(It’s Just) Desire.” “Everywhere I Go.” “I Can Hardly Wait.”
It was just a rush of adrenaline for me. I can’t say enough how much these songs meant to me back in the early ‘90s. I listened to that album constantly.
They did play a few other tracks, including “How Can I Miss You” from the album “Lightning Strikes Twice,” and a cover of Cheap Trick’s “Ain’t That a Shame,” but the focus was on their debut.
Seeing the crowd of Lita Ford fans so into the performance surprised me a little. People were rocking out, dancing, and singing along – including other men in the audience. Like I said in my Rick Springfield story, after so many years, when the bullshit that didn’t matter is stripped away, great music wins out.
I think Matthew and Gunnar got a raw deal in the mid-90s, which made them a bit of a punchline. People fixated on the image – which simply mirrored the many other bands on MTV of that era. But there was a lot more to Nelson beyond that image.
Matthew and Gunnar are talented. Just like their father was. Just like their grandfather Ozzie was. They worked hard to make it big, only to be unceremoniously dropped when trends changed.
They didn’t deserve that.
“After the Rain” remains one of my favorite albums. From start to finish, it’s a tight, well-written and fun pop-rock album.
It was nice to see an audience appreciate many of the tracks in concert and see the Nelson twins get respect. “Love and Affection” went to number one on Billboard, after all, and the song “After the Rain” went to number three. Even if they weren’t appreciated fully in ‘91, just about everyone heard those songs.
It was a joy to see a band and hear songs that I spent nearly every day with for an extended period.
But most of all, it was like reconnecting with old friends.
