Monday, June 24, 2013

Music Maelstrom

Out of nowhere, this has turned into three days of action packed live music for me.

Saturday night I went to Norfolk's Town Point Park, a grassy downtown knoll that overlooks the Elizabeth River, for the annual Bayou Boogaloo.  If not inherently obvious, it's a New Orleans themed festival that runs for three days.

Upon entering the grounds, I caught the tail end of Amanda Shaw. (Awww, yeah.) I first saw her at JazzFest when her band played the Fais Do Do stage about 10 years ago.  She was 14.  She came directly from school that day to lead her band at the Fest. Unbelievable.  Our late great friend Flynn went up and chatted with her after her set.  I think he hit on her.  Believable.

Highlights, as usual, included Amanda's renditions of "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

The Rebirth Brass Band followed, delivering their same brass funk soul beat that they have for years.  Always great.

And Trombone Shorty followed.  The offstage Troy Andrews is a phenomenal trombone (duh) and trumpet player who has been part of Tremé's music scene since we was a little kid; we first saw him onstage at JazzFest as a guest for his brother James Andrews (don't go to him if your knee hurts) and the All-Stars around the turn of the millennium, when Shorty was 13.  These days he adds a whole lot of guitar rock funk to the brass, and it's a crowd pleaser.  Saturday night he closed, and he crushed.

But I only saw the first half of the show.  At that point stepbro Ian called a water taxi, and a few minutes later a 20' outboard number pulled right up the the bulkhead about 30 yards from where we'd lucked into VIP section free beers at Trombone Shorty.  For $6 a head, the water cabbie rode us across the river to Portsmouth, right to the nTelos Pavilion.  From drinking an Abita at Shorty to drinking some nameless domestic light at The Avett Brothers in about 12 minutes.  The Avetts walked onstage about two minutes after we walked into the general admission SRO pavilion floor.  Well played, Ian.

The Avetts offered up their each-and-every-time-I've-seen-them frenzied energy and great sound.  They simply bring a level of effort not generated by most bands, plus they've got more talent in their whole body than I have in my pinky finger.  As Willy said, strike that, reverse it.

The Avetts cranked through excellent numbers new (Live and Die, Geraldine, Paul Newman vs. The Demons) and old (At the Beach, Murder in the City, Paranoia in Bb Major) with seamless vigor.  I'm a fan. They bring it.  They brought it.

So, a big night for music for me.  Sunday did not relent.

We're friends with the singer and guitarist of an Asheville, NC bluegrass outfit called Town Mountain, and they played last night at the Taphouse in Norfolk -- for $10 you got a great gig in a tiny watering hole plus all the pulled pork and fried chicken you could eat.  Not bad.  Check out these cats if they hit your town.

[They do many originals and lots of more traditional tunes, but this one has great appeal to me.]

. . . and then there's tonight.  This afternoon I'm headed up to DC.  One of our Virginia Beach friends is cousins with keyboardist Chuck Leavell; for those not in the know, he was with the Allman Brothers in the 70's and has played with Clapton, the Crowes, etc. . . . and, since the early 1980's, the Rolling Stones.  So our friend asked for four VIP tix to see the Stones tonight, and we got 'em.  Giddyup.


48 comments:

Jerry said...

Who the heck is Whitney?

Danimal said...

wow - that's good shit. nice doin.

you chaps (rootsminer/"whitney") ever head to the fiddler's convention in va? thinking about making that trip next year with the fam - i've got sis that lives nearby. i hear it's good craic.

rootsminer said...

Dang, that's a streak, though I'd be royally pissed if I had to leave Trombone Shorty to see the Avett Brothers.

I saw Town Mountain on Thursday at a friends 40th bday party at Parkway Brewing Co. - not bad, especially with free beer and food.

Enjoy the Stones. They're still rocking pretty hard for a bunch of 70 year old geezers.

Mark said...

Solid run by this Whitney guy.

rootsminer said...

Danimal, are you talking about Galax Fiddler's Convention? I've been a couple times. I like Mount Airy (pretty close to Galax) a bit more, and I still hope to make to Clifftop in WV one of these days. One of my boys is getting pretty good at hamboning, and the other only stops whistling when he's talking or sleeping. Maybe I'll get a family novelty act together for the competition.

The best thing at the fiddlers conventions is to wander the parking lots in search of a good jam session. Watching bands come and play for 3 minutes each on the competition stage is pretty tedious.

Danimal said...

rootsminer - yes, galax. mt. airy, i.e. mayberry? didn't know they had one. duly noted.

i knew some guys in college that loved hambonin, though i think we called it "hoggin" back then.

rob said...

did rootsy just diss the avetts? 'cause them's fightin' words.

zman said...

I think the Avetts are a little too mainstream/dad rock for a legitimate roots musician.

rootsminer said...

Danimal, Mt. Airy is always the first weekend in June.

Rob, that wasn't exactly a diss. Just sayin' I'd rather hear Trombone Shorty.

Jerry said...

"Mary Pierce, down a set, although it doesn't appear that way."

zman said...

Nadal just lost the first two sets of his first round match. I guess he was seeded too high...

rob said...

it would be impossible for me to choose between shorty and the avetts. both of them place in my top 5 all-time favorite live sets. shorty's in there twice, actually.

Jerry said...

Like I've been saying for months now, everyone is sleeping on Darcis.

I think Nadal is having trouble with uncomfortable underwear. He's grabbing and twisting the crotchal region a lot. That will always get you.

T.J. said...

Jerry liveblogging tennis for the next fortnight is gonna be fun...

Jerry said...

Folks from the Darcis camp are saying that he watched film from the famous UVA-Chaminade game last night for inspiration.

Jerry said...

Nadal watched the 1st half of Rocky 4 and South Bend Central's semi-final game.

Jerry said...

Darcis, up a break in the 3rd, looked like he wanted to choke, but ended up holding serve. I wonder what his 1st name is. I'm hoping for Hugo. But it's probably something like Thomas or Michael.

zman said...

Steve.

zman said...

I know that only because the front page of ESPN.com says "Rafael Nadal is in big trouble at Wimbledon, down two sets against Steve Darcis."

Jerry said...

Steve. Terrible. I'm watching with the sound off, so all I know is that he's from Belgium and that he pretty much looks like a Belgian.

Jerry said...

Steeeeeve

zman said...

The first round match to watch is (perhaps obviously) Hewitt/Wawrinka. I saw Wawrinka play Soderling at the 2006 US Open on one of those rinky-dink side courts where you sit about 10 feet from the sidelines. Wawrinka lost the first two sets and my father said to me "This Polack's done, let's go watch Nadal." Wawrinka is Swiss and he came back to win the last three sets in what was probably the match of the day. So we gave up our seats 10 feet away from the match of the day to watch Nadal overwhelm Luis Horna in Arthur Ashe Stadium, sitting in seats perched somewhere near the MIR Space Station. Random anti-zfather rant complete, the point is that Wawrinka is really good and Hewitt is a former Wimbledon champin and world #1.

Danimal said...

Wimbledon = Darci's Playground

Danimal said...

z's dad = anti-PO-lite

Mark said...

I had a midday meeting today. By the time it was over Nadal had been eliminated from Wimbledon. That was fast.

zman said...

Steve Darcis is such a nobody that if you do a google image search you get pictures of a Cabbage Patch Kid and some famous tennis players.

zman said...

zfather does not believe in political correctness. He still uses the same vocabulary he learned in the 1950's.

Danimal said...

the odds on darci were in the neighborhood of 30:1. in football terms, what would that equate to, about 2 sets, 2 game favorite?

d. rovell tweeted that some fella put $500 down on him...won 15k. sketchy. anyone see the 60-min piece some time ago on gambling in tennis?

zman said...

Getting paid to throw games is a problem in tennis but I doubt Nadal would purposely lose at Wimbledon. I don't gamble on tennis (or much else really) so I don't know if 30:1 odds are particularly long ... like my johnson.

rootsminer said...

C'mon z, why don't you just go all in and call it zjohnson?

And you're fairly correct in your assessment of my musical proclivities, though I don't really think of the Avetts as dad rock. I honestly always considered them more of a chick band. But as I always say, my tastes differ from most.

zman said...

Hewitt in straight sets! Seeds are falling left and right.

TR said...

For the record, Steve Darcis is not related to Marcy D'Arcy.

TR said...

Being SRO on a NJ Transit train is certainly fitting of one of the lower levels of Dante's Hell. At least I'm not 3 vodka tonics deep w/o having eaten lunch, with a guy with a whitehead-like rash two feet away from me on an 85-degree train while I have to pee.

Oh wait, I am all of that. I mean I don't have a cheek rash, but I have all that other good stuff. Dirty Jerz bringing the pain. At least I'm half drunk.

rootsminer said...

Ouch TR, nice gritty depiction of dirty jerz. I raced an impending thunderstorm on my bike ride home, and won.

zman said...

TR, you should get a job closer to home. Commuting sucks.

rob said...

i feel tr's pain.

not really. just something people say.

zman said...

Nadal's match is on. I think his knee is hurt again. Boris Becker is doing color commentary and he sounds like Barney from the Simpsons only German.

rob said...

will zman or jerry be live-commenting wimbledon again tomorrow?

zman said...

I don't have tv at work. Maye I'll come home and watch if sharapova is on.

rob said...

i like 'watching sharapova' as a euphemism.

zman said...

She puts on a show.

zman said...

Nadal's knee must be a mess. He served off his front foot and ran around his backhand.

rob said...

later in the match it gets really obvious that the knee is wrecked

Mark said...

I like when Zman nerds it up on Tennis.

zman said...

Becker refers to Darcis only as "the Belgian."

zman said...

Is there hockey tonight?

Mark said...

Wow. What a collapse.

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