Superstars jam with '70s Time Machine

It’s not necessarily easy getting superstars of rock music together. For Mark Farner, former lead singer of Grand Funk Railroad, he just loves to play and have fun so it’s an easy task to get him to jam with others.

That’s just what he is doing with The 70s Time Machine featuring Farner, Denny Laine (Wings) and Chuck Negron (Three Dog Night) on Saturday at Spotlight 29 Casino.

He credits Ringo Starr.

“There has been so many renditions of Ringo’s All Star bands, and I was in one in 1995,” he said during a recent telephone interview. “Ringo was a catalyst for a bunch of different groups. The main constituents of the band do their thing and everyone backs them, but it’s the same musicians backing everybody.”

It’s the same thing, Farner notes, that makes fantasy camps so popular.

“You are bringing in the main talent like Ringo did that’s part of what makes rock and roll fantasy camps work so good,” he said. “Fans come in and they will have a video with someone like Roger Daltrey who they have idolized for years and they can show their friends. That’s part of the fun that makes anything like this work. It’s going to be fun.”

He also points out that it’s not just fun but informative for the people in the show.

“It’s a first time thing with these particular individuals,” he said. “I did it last year, so we got to know it. Last year, I did that show and the same people put on HippieFest and Rick Derringer was on as well as Randy Bachman. These people were friends, but you learn the exact chord conversion you’ve been trying to learn for years when you are jamming with them. They shared info freely, and we just jammed and said, ‘Let’s make some music and be spontaneous.’”

For Farner and the others, it is being able to just feed off each other that is key.

“As far as getting together and practicing, we don’t do that,” he said. “When something has happened like that, it’s more fun when everybody just jumps into it that the audience just gets into it. We are half a bubble off the creative side and you throw us on stage and you never know what you are going to get.”

And that does mean the audience is vital in terms of participation.

“I was doing one of my acoustic shows at Park City, Utah, and it’s hard to sing three-part harmony with two guys,” he said. “That’s when you get the audience involved and drown out the PA system and that is good. It is so rewarding when the audience wants to get up and do ‘The Locomotion.’”

Of course, that refers to Grand Funk Railroad’s Number 1 hit cover of “The Locomotion.”

“The idea for that song happened it as I was coming back from lunch from my farmhouse across street the street from the recording studio in a swamp one nice summer day,” he said. “I was walking down the driveway through the swamp trees and all these birds and I just start busting out ‘Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now’ and the other guys started with the background and Todd Rundgren comes out and says ‘What the hell is that.’ I told him that’s Little Eva, and he said we have to capture the song. That’s a party song and he heard it and we captured it right then and in the mood full of lunch and singing my heart out. It was a wonderful experience.”

What Farner loves seeing is such a vast audience of ages.

“The advent of the classic rock radio format has really made the audience so vast as far as age groups that listen,” he said. “We just did a concert in New York City a couple weeks at B.B. King’s place and there were teens and good variety of people. It’s because it is so available and their parents listened to it and these kids listen as well. So, now they figure that maybe they should go see those people playing the instruments and singing, nothing fake about it.”

And he is still such a fan.

I’ve seen all kinds of people performing and heard their music and hung out with them,” he said. “I’m like a horse getting ready to bust out of chute number four in the rodeo when I get to go on stage. You just hope you don’t suddenly have to take a piss at the last second!”