ANAHEIM, Calif. — The letters on the marquee of the Roxy Theatre spelled out “Dogstar” on Tuesday, and if that name seems familiar, well, maybe you were around at the start of this century when the rock band that includes actor Keanu Reeves on bass last played a show in Southern California.
This was not a glitch in the matrix. The last time anyone around here saw Dogstar was exactly 23 years and five days ago at the now-closed Key Club about 300 feet west of the Roxy on the Sunset Strip.
So yeah, this was a big deal for fans of Dogstar, who, to be fair, are first and foremost fans of Reeves, the star of such movies as “The Matrix,” “John Wick,” and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”
That’s the kind of statement that likely still makes Reeves wince a little given how long he’s tried to make it clear that he’s just one of the guys in the band. He’s the bass player, for crying out loud, and singer-guitarist Bret Domrose and drummer Robert Mailhouse are his equals in music if not fame on this stage.
Try telling that to the fans at the Roxy, though.
“My god, obviously, Keanu’s the draw,” said Anna Su of Los Angeles when asked what convinced her to drop seven times the $50 face value of tickets to get inside the Roxy on Tuesday.
“He’s beloved,” her friend Angella Gronenthal added. “He was our No. 1 since ‘Bill & Ted.’”
The Roxy show was booked to celebrate the release of the new single “Everything Turns Around.” Hours after the show, Dogstar announced a new album, “Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees,” for the fall. A full tour kicks off at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach on Aug. 10 and includes dates in Ventura, Solano Beach, Santa Ana and Los Angeles before it wraps up in December.
In the year or so since reforming the band, Domrose, Mailhouse and Reeves have been busy. Nearly, if not all, of the 17 songs in the 70 minutes Dogstar played were new material judging from the set list for the show.
And that’s a good thing because whether it was the material or the live setting, the songs played Tuesday felt more alive than the original two albums and one EP that Dogstar released between 1996 and 2000. The old stuff was typically gloomy, sometimes dour alternative rock of the grunge era.
Much of the new material had more of a heartbeat to it. “Lust” featured a strong syncopated interplay between Reeves and Mailhouse on bass and drums. The new single, “Everything Turns Around,” had even more life in its melodies and rhythms.
“Well, this is more fun than I dreamed,” Domrose said as fans cheered at the finish of “Glimmer,” a slower ballad. “We’re going to take you to every city. We’ve got busses pulling up so call your loved ones, tell them you won’t be home for six weeks.”
There clearly would have been takers, based on conversations we had with other fans on Tuesday.
Chloe Christine, Lara Whittle, and Gemma Trasnor, three friends on vacation from Glasgow, Scotland, had tried to get tickets to the show when they went on sale.
“But it sold out right away, and I was like, damn, whatever,” Christine said. “So we came up to the venue to see it, because it’s a really iconic venue.”
On a whim, she asked the doorman if there was any chance for a ticket and was stunned to find that a number of $50 tickets were available.
“I just love him,” Christine said of Reeves. “Dogstar played T In The Park festival in Glasgow in 1996, which was the year before I was born. I just love that.”
Like many in the crowd, Reeves isn’t just an idol for his work on screen. His off-screen persona – humble, earnest, kind, sincere – makes him feel like a real person in ways other stars do not. The Glaswegians, for instance, shared stories about how he took the local bus to the festival venue or how he met members of a local band in a pub and had more questions about them than they did him.
That manner was clearly on display at the Roxy on Tuesday. Domrose is the frontman and the only one on stage with a microphone. Reeves didn’t speak at all, mostly looking down as he played his bass, his shoulder-length hair falling forward around his scruffily bearded cheeks.
Between songs, he smiled and nodded to fans. A few times he waved to friends at the back of the theater where his partner Alexandra Grant and more friends danced and cheered. Occasionally, after a big crowd response at the end of a song, he tapped his chest, over his heart, as a gesture of gratitude.
During “Flowers,” Reeves grinned as Domrose nudged him into a rock star pose or two, the pair of them facing off with their instruments for some crunchy hard rock riffing.
After “Breach” delivered one of the heaviest rock tunes of the night, the band stepped off stage briefly for a break, returning to play three more songs in an encore that wrapped up the night.
Outside the theater, Rosie Kim and Brittany Nobles posed for a photo in front of the Dogstar name on the Roxy marquee.
“It was awesome,” said Kim, who got a high five from Reeves as he was leaving the stage. “He knows we’re all dorks for him.”
Even so, it wasn’t just about Keanu in the end, Nobles added.
“Everyone came for Keanu Reeves,” she said. “But I think (the band) got a lot of Dogstar fans by the end.”
