Daisy Jones & the Six is a by no means groundbreaking but still entertaining account of the best band that never was, charting its meteoric rise and just-as-abrupt fall. Soap operas set against the worlds of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll are nothing new, but “Daisy Jones & the Six” is a soap opera set against them. Thank the cast in part for that, especially Riley Keough, who proudly embodies her rock heritage and grandpa Elvis by singing the band’s songs.
Taylor Jenkins Reid’s book, which drew inspiration from Fleetwood Mac, was turned into an Amazon series. The play, however, largely succeeds by forging its own path, naming era-appropriate cultural items (Barry Manilow and “Rollerball” among them) while strictly focusing on the band, with all the simmering charms and festering resentments that go along with the creative process.
The band members reflect 20 years later on how they came together in the 1970s before abruptly disbanding at the height of their success in each episode (or “track”), which utilises the name of a classic song.
At the centre of that is Keough’s Daisy Jones, a musical dynamo with a volatile temper who, due to the foresight of a record executive (Tom Wright), is paired up with up-and-coming band the Six (there are actually five of them), a driven ensemble from Pittsburgh led by leader Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin).
Yet, that is only one of the negative factors ingrained in the Six’s interactions, and each point of contention is made worse by the temptations of fame and riches.
Billy marries Camila Morrone, his girlfriend, for the most rock-star-like of reasons, but it’s hard to ignore all that sexual tension with Daisy that adds a combustible quality to their collaborations as songwriters and on stage in the mesh of their sensibilities and constantly threatens the group’s interpersonal dynamics.
Eddie, the group’s lead guitarist, admits in the interviews that “we didn’t really understand addiction back then,” and Daisy queries the unnamed documentarian, who has promised to give her “everything,” about how much of “everything” she actually wants to know.
Nearly Famous, the previous two iterations of “A Star is Born,” and Tom Hanks’ homage to one-hit wonders, “That Thing You Do,” are just a few examples of rock ‘n’ roll stories that “Daisy Jones” inevitably feels like a rip-off of.
Even though the scenarios don’t feel entirely unique, the array of characters in this programme is good enough to carry it through its season. “It was every band’s dream come true,” the tour manager, played by Timothy Olyphant, muses about the group’s euphoric brush with rock immortality, as filtered through the in-hindsight prism of its personality-driven downfall.
“Daisy Jones & the Six” doesn’t quite meet the criteria for a dream realised, but it does transform its made-up narrative into a four-star soap opera, wistfully reflecting this musical age in general and the occasionally transitory nature of success. It’s a taste of “the calm of remembering what you had, and what you lost,” in the words of Fleetwood Mac.
News Summary:
- A fictional band is transformed into a four-star soap opera in “Daisy Jones & the Six”
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