[from Portland OR via London] Second show in one week and Portland shut down two nights ago (for indoor stuff) – more to the point, second show in over more than a year. I was giddy – giddy like this wasn’t a blues cover band – giddy like there weren’t thirteen people in the audience – giddy like the band wasn’t two tame middle-aged white nerds. The guitarist/singer was dressed like a contemporary blues singer cliché (beret, untucked dress shirt, jeans). His voice wasn’t bad but loins weren’t being stirred – subdued and restrained were the order of the day. He kept making me think of the go-to actor for uptight yuppies in 90s sitcoms… Paul Reiser! But more subdued. The bassist/silent-singer (literally) was a teddy bear with luminous eyes, soft hair missing from some spots and growing in odd spots, and a t-shirt (tucked into his jeans) (that I’m sure was really soft). It took me halfway through the set to realize that his hapless look was partly because he sat through the whole set. I thought maybe he Needed to sit but the band walked back to chat with the people behind me during their break – no judgment, sitting’s nice. They played a good variety – Texas blues…. I don’t know – it mostly sounded like club blues to me. I went through a long phase of professing to be a major delta blues fan – I even took a roadtrip through the very alluvial plain … but, after all these years, I still can’t name the singer of a delta blues song so no more claims. For instance, they were taking requests and I certainly did not make one. To use phrases that SuspiciousOfWhiteMen loves to say, because they are inappropriate given her position in life, I ‘mind my place’ ‘stay in my lane’ when I’m in a music setting where I lack the requisite expertise to be calling out songs and ruining the nights of real experts with some unsightly request. Strangely, the one song that popped in my head (BB King’s “The Thrill is Gone”), they ended up playing. It’s a sexy multi-layered song no doubt. An old timer requested Johnny Cash’s “I’m On Fire.” A slightly-lit 60-something bohemian in front of me kept murmuring about Bessie Smith but I don’t even think they were playing her. They did a song called “Ophelia” which I had to google to find out is by beloved The Band (of “The Weight” fame). The ‘crowd’ stirred when they did “Don’t Cry No More” which I also didn’t know – Bobby Bland – their version was a lot more reggae and they did little jam loops of other songs in the middle … I liked it – Bland does it too. I’m pretty sure they didn’t do any originals but covering Lord Huron’s “Take Me Back to the Night We Met” was original of them. The singer said he learned of this song while hiking? I liked the song better from them – Lord Huron is very pretty and very processed, makes sense they’re LA. So I came to like the band. But, I mean, all filters are gone now. Most at least. For instance, they felt free to expose their elitism - and I sure enjoy arrogant people. They were complaining how their Friday show involved all these shameful requests – Metallica, Santana, “Freebird” for god’s sake!! Eric Clapton came up & the vocalist started throwing shade (hearhear) and pointed at seated man to accuse him of being a Clapton supporter but he was already riffing out Clapton songs. They were both good instrumentalists and would switch up the bass & lead. The singer played harmonica sometimes, slid his guitar sometimes. The bassist appeared to be staring up at the singer worshipfully… I mean he sort of had to because he never stood up… but he also had a perpetual goofy smile that made me smile. And when it was a song with backup vocals, his lips would move but no sound came out – I was thirty feet away in a mostly silent space so I don’t know what was going on…. Best of all, though, they’d do these interludes between songs noodling metal bass lines (Smoke on the Water, something else harder) and then did this whole harmonic “Eye of the Tiger” guitar jam that was HElarious. It was just obvious they like each other and have fun with their little gigs. Although the singer was saying he plays the Waterfront Blues Festival??? Which is a huge event (in Portland) (I hate it) (because I’m an asshole). And then, because it’s wild west land on pandemic land, I ended up talking to the people at the table behind me, who were clearly wizard-level with their clipboards & the band visting them & the waitress knowing them. Turns out they’re the organizers of Waterfront Blues Festival (or the sound team?? except they knew too much to just be that). They were humble & nice, him old & her young & they fucking – the man has a PhD in history and is a retired K-12 football coach. We commiserated about the fucked-upness of Oregon’s fucked-up response to the fucked-up virus, shutting down more & harder than potentially any other state, even California – thus city destroyed – trash, litter, tents, gunshots, sirens is all we have left.
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