Tesla

Tesla has passed through that awkward stage experienced by any moderately successful rock band after its commercial heyday, when it realizes that there is a middle ground between platinum sales and breaking up. The group scored its major-label hits in the late 1980s and early �90s, then dissolved when the hits stopped coming and personal problems intruded. But by the turn of the century they were back together because there is a good living to be made by fortysomething rock stars playing to thirtysomething fans who remember them from their impressionable teens. Since then, Tesla has toured, and they even released a new studio album, Into the Now, in 2004 that spent over seven months in the charts. This two-hour concert video documents the band's appeal to its fans with a set heavy on those hits ("Love Song," "Signs"), but also including popular album tracks, songs from Into the Now, and even a new song, the war-themed "Dear Pvt. Ledbetter," earmarked for the next studio album. Although they put on a full-scale show with professional rock-show lighting and guitar technicians coming and going with an army of instruments, Tesla is something of a no-frills hard rock band, dressed down in T-shirts and jeans. (Drummer Troy Luccketta and guitarist Frank Hannon sport Tesla T-shirts, in fact.) They strike rock star poses now and then, but mostly they just get about the business of playing their music for a full house at Myth, an auditorium in St. Paul, MN. Singer Jeff Keith is a friendly, but not very imposing frontman who restricts his stage remarks largely to greetings and sings in a throaty nasal screech that successfully cuts through the twin guitars; Hannon is actually almost as much of a frontman as the singer. There are a few brief interview interludes cut in here and there, for instance to introduce new guitarist Dave Rude (replacing original member Tommy Skeoch) or dedicate a song. From the appearance of this thoroughly professional, if unexceptional, performance, Tesla has settled into its secondary career as a veteran touring band and could be at it for quite a while. (The DVD contains more than an hour of backstage extras, including sightseeing in Seattle, fan comments, and each band member's loving description of his instruments and equipment.) ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide