SHARING THE SHOWS
After another busy week at the academic grind (final projects are coming due), this introvert needed some “me” time, which was spent on the couch with my son/cat Chester lying on my stomach while I finished the second season of Ozark on Netflix (some dark shit), caught up on This Is Us On DVR (awwwwww), and watched Detroit Rock City (my 18th or 19th time watching it), that delightful little romp about those kids trying to get a Kiss concert, for inspiration for my screenplay, which is about four kids trying to get to Big Cypress, that big Phish festival that celebrated Y2K.
Anyway, Saturday night was about the concert. Maggie and I rode down 64 to Richmond to the Broadberry, a very intimate venue, which marked the first time I saw Skydog, an Allman Brothers tribute band, perform a full show, and it was quite the metaphysical experience. Funny story: that show fell on my ex-girlfriend’s birthday. We had broken up a few months before. It was a long-distance relationship, so I would have traveled from Virginia to Ohio to visit her and missed the wonder that is Skydog, and you might not be reading this. No regrets here. Anyway, we had some deep conversations about life, punctuated by Disc 2 of the Allmans’s Dreams anthology. When we got there, it was sparse. A 9:00 start time meant 9:13, another ploy to get people to buy more alcohol while they wait. A nondrinker, one of the things I love about the Broadberry is they set up a water station so you don’t have to compete with the drinkers for the bartender’s attention (Shaka’s did this too). Designated drivers rule! The picture behind Maggie and I is supposed to say “Virginia is for Music Lovers,” but it actually came out on her phone as “Virginia is for Lo_ers” (insert your own consonant, preferably not “s”?) The artists definitely needed to use a lighter color. The band opened with “Blue Sky.” Once that opening note hit, I was a dancing machine. Dancing is some of the best therapy I can attest to; I danced out some of that work-related stress. They followed it with “Black-Hearted Woman,” which had a “Whipping Post” tease, but went into a delicious jam. My thought at the time: I feel very authentic seeing an Allmans tribute in Virginia, given that they’re Southern rock. Seeing them in New York back in the day was amazing too, but there’s a flavor in the Richmond, Virginia backdrop that New York just doesn’t provide for the Allmans. They followed up with “Come and Go Blues,” “Midnight Rider” (a favorite of mine), “Southbound,” and a psychedelic “Dreams,” that had quite the mesmerizing bass line. I stood next to a dude who looked just like John Bell, the lead singer for Widespread Panic, and Maggie caught a picture of Gregg Allman’s doppelganger. “Stand Back” (another favorite) followed that, and then came their signature “Whipping Post.” A dark song, it spoke to some of the work-related stress I was feeling, but then “Soulshine” followed, which always lifts my spirit, as if saying, things are gonna be alright! Setbreak had more deep conversation. The second set opened with “Statesboro Blues,” then “Little Martha,” then a couple of songs I couldn’t name, then “Every Hungry Woman” (another favorite). There’s not much to report there, because I started dragging at that point, as did Maggie. We tried to fight through, but as Maggie put it, sometimes we have to listen to our bodies. So we surrendered and headed home. The obligatory post-show munchies run was punctuated by the clerk cracking up at my encouragement of Maggie’s purchase of a peanut butter brownie through the singing of “Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.” He probably thought we were experiencing some munchies (we were, but not for the reasons you might think; it’s awesome enjoying a show and having a permagrin straight).
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May 2024
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