'Walk Hard' live and kicking

Columbia Pictures had the wrong venue for staging Monday night's coming out party for "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story."

Just a short walk from where John C. Reilly took the stage as Dewey Cox in West Hollywood lies the House of Blues, a nightclub chain that stands as a permanent celebration of rock 'n' roll's love affair with the movies.

Where better for a fictional band to come to life than a venue closely associated with "Saturday Night Live" skit-turned-film "The Blues Brothers"?

But whereas the House of Blues icons the Blues Brothers specialize in covers, many of the songs featured in "Walk Hard," the latest film from the Judd Apatow ("Superbad," "Knocked Up") comedy empire, are originals. Each tune is a good-natured parody of artists such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, among others.

So even though Monday's hour-long marketing event-turned-concert -- a preview for a brief "Walk Hard" tour -- was little more than a live-action movie trailer, it was more entertaining than not.

The strength of some of the tunes has people talking about a Golden Globe or even Oscar nomination. There's nothing in the Dewey Cox repertoire that's going to make anyone forget the artists that are being mocked, but far worse songs than those in "Walk Hard" have walked away with Grammys.

There's plenty of talent behind these songs. Contributors include power-pop stalwarts such as Marshall Crenshaw, Mike Viola (a member of live band Dewey Cox and the Hard Walkers) and humorous singer/songwriter Dan Bern. And while limited as a vocalist, Reilly isn't going to embarrass himself fronting a band. He previously appeared in the film version of the musical "Chicago."

And Reilly was in fine form Monday night, earning a laugh for every juvenile joke that plays on his character's last name, and always managing to keep a straight face, whether he was asking a woman in the front row if he could touch her breasts or explaining that the concert was a "time continuation experiment" courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The latter was a reference to the way movie and soundtrack play on rock cliches through the decades, although most of the songs fall somewhere between the the Everly Brothers-inspired pop of "Take My Hand," the Bob Dylan-like protest of "Let Me Hold You (Little Man)," or the country rock of the Johnny Cash ode "Walk Hard."

In the film, the success of the songs rests largely on the fact that the music falls just short of being too absurd to be believable. That wasn't always the case when it was just the songs on display. Live at the Roxy, the full versions of the songs didn't have the plot to fall back on, and the shtick does start to wear thin after about 30 minutes or so.

Reilly took the stage strutting like an Elvis impersonator in Reno, and his between-song stage patter was sometimes more entertaining than the music. "Don't be taking so many pictures now that I got my shirt off," he said before an encore, and when he entered his Dylan phase, Reilly yelled, "Are you ready for some social commentary?"

In fact, it was the political parodies that worked best live and garnered the largest laughs. "Dear Mr. President" was a stream of politically incorrect comments that botched the tune's good intentions, and "Ladies First" did a fine job of ripping the self-seriousness of plenty of rock 'n' rollers, wrapping an activist message in ignorance. Sang Reilly: "In 1920-something you got the right to vote ... after that you really had to use your little brains."

When it came to the centerpiece songs of the film, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Angela Correa stole "Let's Duet," her sly vocals providing a much-needed antidote to Reilly's sometimes over-singing. But later, Reilly proved to be a fine harmonica player, and the title track's hooks lasted long after the concert ended.

As a marketing tie-in, the evening was an unqualified success -- the crowd hooting and hollering every time Reilly would pick up a guitar and show he could actually play the thing. And his cover of "Got My Mojo Working," a blues rocker most commonly associated with Muddy Waters, was as strong as any local bar band's.

But there was only one real moment when the concert became something more than a commercial for a movie, and that was during set closer "Beautiful Ride." It's a fine pop song in its own right, a lighthearted reflection on aging that isn't exactly easy to capture. When Reilly declared that one of the goals to a successful life is "traveling not just for business," Reilly was -- if even for a brief moment -- no longer working to sell a movie, but reflecting the working man.

Hey, a good tune is a good tune, even if it exists solely to move some movie tickets. And really, if "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" teaches us anything, it's that authenticity in rock 'n' roll is largely just a myth, and one that's ripe for laughs.

(Photos courtesy WireImage)

Comments

[-TM]

Did i leave off the 'a'? Ugh, I did, didn't I? Corrected. My apologies. I didn't last time! See below:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/extendedplay/2007/11/walk-hard.html