CARLTON FLETCHER: On texting, cute chicks and Grand Funk Railroad

Sweet, sweet Connie was doing her act. She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact.

— Grand Funk Railroad

The first thing I did when I got up Friday morning was watch clips of Grand Funk Railroad playing “Inside Looking Out” from 1969 and Don Brewer’s “T.N.U.C.” drum solo from a show in 1974.

(By the way, isn’t YouTube wonderful?)

What prompted this what might be considered odd or random behavior was a trip to the Georgia National Fair in Perry Thursday night to see the 2015 version of Grand Funk — minus guitarist/singer Mark Farner — perform. Here are a few things I brought back to Albany:

— Don Brewer may be 122 years old now (actually, he’s a very I’m-gonna-live-forever-looking 67, I looked it up), but he can still play drums like a madman. When GFR started playing “T.N.U.C.” Thursday night, I didn’t know what to expect. By the time they’d finished, and Brewer had played his iconic drum solo with the same energy that he did in the 1974 clip I watched Friday morning, I remembered what I used to say about the band in their heyday: Farner was the perfect compliment for the hard-rocking three-piece, but the real stars are Brewer and bassist Mel Schacher.

— Schacher was Flea and Les Claypool before today’s best bass players were even born, a rock and roll Bootsie Collins, if you will. On a great many early Grand Funk songs, Schacher’s bass was so front-and-center, it diminished Farner’s guitar-playing to little more than accompaniment. That the master of the four-string could still lay claim to the title “God of Thunder,” as Farner sub Max Carl called him Thursday, was evident when the band did a smoking version of “Inside.”

— Bruce Kulick, who backed KISS during those rockers’ heyday, Carl, who sang for Southern rockers .38 Special, and Tim Cashion, the keyboard great who played with, among others, Bob Seger and Robert Palmer, very nicely flesh out the sound of the current version of Grand Funk. Kulick especially shone Thursday, actually offering a guitar upgrade.

(I’ll take a moment here to qualify my seemingly blasphemous comments about one of the vital components of the Mark, Don and Mel trio that was — and always will be — Grand Funk. Mark Farner was, as I said, the prefect complementary player to Brewer and Schacher when the band was pounding out nine-minute live versions of “Mean Mistreater” and “I’m Your Captain,” stalking the stage, shirtless, with a leonine grace. He just wasn’t the accomplished musician that Schacher and Brewer were. I’ve seen Farner solo, and I’ve seen him with Grand Funk. Let’s just say he was the Don Felder of GFR and move on.)

— One thing about rock and roll hasn’t changed in the almost 50 years since Grand Funk started playing music: While it’s the dudes who are most into the music, cute girls always win out. (More on that later.)

Any time artists from what’s now dubbed the Classic Rock era perform, you’re going to hear some wise-asteroid talk about the age of the musicians and their Depends sponsorship and using walkers to get onstage and blah, blah, blah. I defy Five Seconds of Summer or One Direction or Fallout Boy to put on a more energetic, dynamic or — dare I say it — kick-ass show than Grand Funk did in Perry Thursday.

Everyone loved the “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Closer to Home,” “We’re an American Band” set closers, but watching Schacher play bass on “Inside Looking Out” and Brewer go drum crazy on “T.N.U.C.” will definitely claim a place in my pantheon of live rock and roll moments.

Oh, and about the cute girls thing. Our 13-year-old was leaning on the stage barricade with her mom and me during Grand Funk’s performance, and at the end of the show, Kulick, who was tossing personalized guitar picks into the crowd, walked over to where she stood and handed her down a pick, despite all the upraised hands begging for a souvenir.

Standing in line to get a concert Tee (yeah, I’ve been told I’m a geek that way, but it’s my wardrobe), we noticed Kulick being accompanied by security to a backstage artists-only area. The 13-year-old ran toward him and said, “Can I get a picture with you?”

You could see the beginning of a “Not again …” look when the guitarist turned, but when he saw who it was he relented, calling her over. He smiled as mom snapped a photo, then told my 13-year-old, “Don’t be texting when I’m playing guitar.”

As they say, it’s only rock and roll …

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_Fletcher on Twitter.