Travels With Charlie...And Carlos

Charles C. Labenz Arizona Daily Wildcat Santana flashes a pair of peace sign during a message "peace, life, love, joy" he sang along with the crowd.

Man, I can't help thinking I was born too late. I missed something special. All twentysomethings missed it.

We missed the age when angst-ridden, white-boy, gutterpunk, false rock didn't populate the airwaves.

When "party foul" meant nothing, except in stereotyped 1960s frat houses.

When Carlos Santana was still the man among men.

Let me take that last one back.

He is still the man among men. That, he proved Friday night at the P.C. fairgrounds - a concert that fell into my own personal version of John Steinbeck's memoir, Travels With Charley. But the Charlie I was with that night ain't a gray poodle like in that book. He's a Wildcat photographer with a bitchin' Bug.

Volkswagen, that is.

As we headed toward the Rita Road I-10 exit at 6:55 p.m. for the 7:30 concert, my mind was all Rusted Root, the folkish sextet out of Pittsburgh that opened for Santana on his 1997 summer tour.

But we missed 'em, while idling in the five-mile vehicular log-jam surrounding the venue. Their percussion is next to none, as Charlie and I learned with the engine off, craning our necks to catch an aural glimpse.

It didn't work, though. Splitting a joint passed the time, but didn't kill off the disappointment.

As we passed the entry gate, Rusted Root was off and gone, but Carlos was yet to come.

I split off from Charlie at the men's room and walked out into the west lawn, amidst a wild cross-section of southwestern lore: infant daughters perched atop their father's shoulders, white trash nursing $4 plastic cups of Budweiser and even a few neo-Nazi-looking youths. I figured there would be fights before the night was out.

I was wrong, for as the stage lights dimmed and I tripped over a lawn chair in the dark, Carlos Santana walked into the spotlight.

Somehow the world was saved for the following hours - one of those rare occasions when, "It's all good," actually applies.

The guy was simmering as he strode on stage and fast began to boil, lighting into guitar solo after solo along with three drummers, a bongo man, keyboard dude, bassist and another vocalist.

I didn't know any of his first few songs, but something climaxed toward the end of the third tune and Carlos opened up a stinging cover of Jimi Hendrix's "If 6 was 9." You know the one: "If the sun / refused to shine ..."

Co-vocalist Tony Lindsay made the cover worthwhile 'cause he's got a reggae mind with a Latin twinge. He reconfirmed this later in the show with a Marley cover, "Get Up, Stand Up," where he backed up Santana and Rusted Root lead singer Michael Glabicki.

Oh yeah, I ended up seeing Rusted Root after all, when they came out and split a few numbers with Carlos and the boys. I was pleased to see 'em, even if they were just covering Bob Marley.

What stuck clear in my mind, however, was the show's family nature, which came forward as Rusted Root cleared the stage and the Santana band lit into their old standards.

"Evil Ways" was first up, and sons and daughters appeared without warning atop fathers' shoulders to hear the real thing. The real Santana - what all us twentysomethings missed.

As I meandered around the lawn, I wandered through the unofficial "pot" section and the pre-teen beer-swilling section. Finally I came to the family section, populated by lawn chairs, picnic blankets and parents exposing their kids to culture. Real culture.

As the band entered "Black Magic Woman" and followed it with "Oye Como Va," I realized this was a shard of history - straight from Carlos Santana's San Francisco musical roots.

He delivered his messages:

"Peace, Life, Love and Joy"

"All is one, one love supreme."

There's something to dig there.