Surprise!

the old man trod on stage, clad in a dank button down shirt, some slacks and a union soldier's civil war hat. seated at a keyboard at the front of the stage and surrounded by his mates, robert bradley stole the spotlight though he couldn't see it.

for the first time in 6 years, i attended a robert bradley's blackwater surprise show. they've perpetually been one of my favorite bands since the brothers wolfe and hollywood introduced me to them 10 years ago. in that time i've accumulated virtually every album they've produced, save the live version of their Bloomington, IN NYE show. needless to say i was STOKED that they'd arrived in our fair mile-high city for an evening with their followers.

my last memory of bobby, as i call him, was of an old, decrepit, 60 year old blind black dude with a shit ton of excess energy to burn on stage. tonight, el senor bradley was a broken down, 58-year old blind dude (yeah, he got younger??) with less physical energy but a reservoir of moxy.

after his opening act left, bob and the boys opened with "time to remember." it's a good song, not one of my favorites, but altogether a good start. the show mosied about at a nice, comfortable pace. "higher," one of my all-time faves, lacked a little gusto without kid rock lending his--ahem--talent to the mix. it just seemed to be missing something, but nevertheless, it was a lively performance.

of the entire set, there were 2 songs i didn't know (i also got the feeling that i was the only one there that knew the lyrics to all of the others). one was a new one they hadn't yet officially recorded--and i'm not psychic. the other was a song from the HBO movie lackawanna blues. i didn't know that song because a) lackawanna blues was about 4 years ago and b) the movie sucked so i didn't watch the whole thing, or enough to know the song. i digress.

RBBS took 2 curtain calls. but they were kind of half-assed. ya know, it's sort of difficult to trick the crowd into thinking you're done when you have to lead your lead singer off stage with a cane and grabbing his arm and then try and "surprise" the audience with a triumphant return. each time they returned, however, they received a raucous ovation. sadly, in neither of their encores did the boys manage to include "california" or "trouble brother," two of the band's more blues-y songs. disappointed as i was, i couldn't have been happier to have driven to homogeneous suburbia to catch my old black man rockin' to the blues. after a 6 year absence from my life, robert bradley's blackwater surprise was definitely a pleasant one.


PS. RBBS will be releasing a new album sometime later this summer. keep an eye out. if you've never heard them, you owe it to yourself to give a listen.