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Is there any celebrity who is as beloved as Keanu Reeves? Besides Dolly Parton? I don’t think so. Whenever Keanu is in the news I know it’s going to be for something good. And how blessed we are to have not one but two Keanu stories today. The first is that he performed with his band Dogstar for the first time in twenty years. I am a young-ish millennial so I did not know about Dogstar, it was before my time. It was a band Keanu was part of from 1991 until about 2002, but it was always overshadowed by Keanu’s acting projects. The band reunited at BottleRock festival in Napa and sounded pretty good!
Keanu Reeves… played bass with his old rock band Dogstar in its first public concert in more than 20 years Saturday at the BottleRock Napa Valley festival in Napa California, Deadline reported.
Dogstar never really hit it big, but with the “Matrix” star providing the celebrity power, thousands watched him with bandmates Bret Domrose, the lead singer, and drummer Robert Mailhouse.
Reeves jumped for joy as the the band began its set in video shared by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mariecar Mendoza.
“We were hoping we wouldn’t see a lot of grass. This is awesome,” Domrose told the crowd, SF Gate reported.
Screams of “We love you, Keanu!” accompanied every number, according to SFGate. Reeves said about as much as he did in the recent blockbuster “John Wick: Chapter 4,” but he allowed afterward that he was nervous. He credited Mailhouse with easing his stage jitters.
“He was just super positive,” Reeves told The San Francisco Chronicle. “He was like, ‘Listen to the music. Just be present in the song, and it will go from there.’”
There are some videos embedded in that article that show Keanu playing the bass and it’s distracting how hot he is. I am also distracted by the fact that he is wearing orange pants that perfectly match his bass guitar. But he’s better than I expected! What I always notice about Keanu as a performer is his stillness and poise. He makes things seem effortless. That’s why it surprised me to read that he was nervous and needed support from his band mate, because he doesn’t look nervous at all. Then again, twenty years between performances is a long time. Of course I’m sure a lot of people were there just to see him–if I had known he was performing in person on the same coast as me, I would have bought festival tickets and a plane ticket months ago.
The second story comes to us courtesy of Kate Beckinsale’s Instagram. She posted a throwback photo from her first time at the Cannes Film Festival thirty years ago. Back then she was starring in Much Ado About Nothing with Keanu, Denzel Washington, and Robert Sean Leonard. The story behind the photo is a sweet one: Keanu and Robert were helping her hide a wardrobe malfunction on the biggest night of her career.
“I had bought the bodysuit in the Sock Shop at the airport,” she explained, “and when I got in the car to drive to the premiere with Denzel and Pauletta Washington, all the poppers in the crotch popped themselves open and it flipped up like a roller blind.”
Beckinsale, 49, “didn’t feel it was appropriate to go delving around in [her] undercarriage” to clip her bodysuit back together, so she “just quietly panicked.”
Upon exiting the vehicle and stepping out “onto the biggest red carpet of [her] life,” the “Pearl Harbor” star “whispered to Keanu and Robert Sean Leonard what had happened.”
“In this picture I am holding the front gusset down and the two of them are holding the back gusset,” she shared, referring to the reinforced piece of fabric sewn into a garment.
Beckinsale went on to call the actors “absolute legends who may not even have fully understood the physics of what was happening or even heard the word ‘gusset’ before.
“But both jumped in to save me no questions asked x.”
I tried to find more photos from that night to get a better sense of Kate’s outfit. I think she was wearing a bodysuit under a skirt or a dress and it was riding up at her waist? Either way, of course Keanu would do the gentlemanly thing and help her out. That’s what Keanu does. He is, by all accounts, one of the good ones. I would have had no idea, looking at the photo, that anything was amiss. Everyone looks so young and carefree. Keanu and Kate are both beaming at Denzel Washington–I wonder if he had any inkling of what was going on. Did they have to move across the red carpet like, that, as a unit? That makes me think of the famous scene in Bringing Up Baby where Cary Grant’s character accidentally tears the back of Katharine Hepburn’s dress off. He has to awkwardly walk behind her with his arm around her waist to protect her modesty while she tries (and fails) to keep the panic out of her face. It’s a hilarious scene. Also, how different was the red carpet in 1993? No actress at Cannes today would have bought part of their red carpet ensemble at a sock store at the airport. Things are so much fancier now.
Love me some Keanu, i hope he keeps performing and does a world tour, i would love to see him in concert
Great portrait photo of a joyful Keanu! More happiness for one of the good guys!
Completely agree!! Keanu is one of the great guys and deserves all of the happiness and excellent juju coming his way!! Though it doesn’t hurt that he is back with his band mates too!! I bet he enjoys playing and the comrade with his mates as well.
I simply can’t get over how young he looked back then either, as well as KB too!!
Does anyone remember the song ‘K-E-A-N-U Reeves’ by the Voodoo Queens ?
Dogstar played at a local beach bar forever ago and it’s all anybody was talking about, going to get a Keanu sighting. From what I heard it was the most packed the place had ever been and they played a good show, sorry I missed it but probably wouldn’t have gotten in anyway (very small venue in a tiny beach town in Delaware).
*Waving* Hello from Milton, DE!
His band opened for a friends band when I first moved to LA. It would have been 2004-ish. Keanu showed up on his motorcycle and was gracious in the green room. I don’t remember if Keanu was playing with Dogstar specifically, or maybe it was another band. He played bass.
Keanu Forever 💕
I know…….such a gracious, kind and generous man whose presence simply exudes an aura of kindness, compassion and empathy. I would watch him read the newspaper out loud if I could.
Though I do love the pictures that KB shared here with these guys coming to her rescue. That must have been a sight to behold!!
He looks so happy in the Dogstar pic.
I remember his Dogstar days, they opened for a few big name acts, toured a short time.
No idea how the music was but IMO Keanu was the draw. 👍
Look how gorgeous he was in the pic w/KB. 💕
❤️ Keanu
So good to see Keanu playing bass again, and looking happy, grinning broadly.
I remember Dogstar playing festivals in Europe one summer — T in the Park (Scotland), Rantarock (Finland), even Glastonbury — that resulted in cute photos of their bassist. 😍 Good times!
I remember seeing Dogstar in SF back in the day, I wasn’t into Keanu and was super annoyed at all the fan girls. Back then if it was mainstream it automatically wasn’t cool, but I think I got a little star struck.
“I’ll be with you in a moment Mr. Peabody”……
”Aaahhh, I’ve seen you’ve torn your coat……”
“You were meeting Mr. Peabody? Well he’s my Uncle, I can get you an audience with him!”
I have watched Bringing Up Baby a few times….I have it on DVD too!!
Love you, Keanu!!!!
I saw them (HIM) perform in 1994!
I was there at BottleRock in Napa and that band was really good. I was in the front at the barriers and did nothing but stare at my next ex-husband! He looks incredible in person. Love me some Keanu!