Mar. 8th, 2019 10:51 am
White-boy blues
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muckefuckSo I did the thing last night. What tipped the balance was seeing a couple of pals, including Scruffy, say they'd be there, too. When I arrived (unfashionably early despite missing the bus), he and his friend DM were already there and scooted over to make room for me in a booth we soon ended up abandoning because the performance space was in a different part of the restaurant.
DM, it turned out, was there under somewhat false pretenses, as Scruffy had mentioned only dinner and not a show, but he's very phlegmatic by nature. Scruffy, by contrast, was uncommonly irritable. I'd placed my things on the empty chair next to him so I could sit on the banquette and have a view of the entire room, and for some reason this annoyed him so much he demanded I move them and turned the chair around. They left after the first set.
Well before then, a crowd of bears I know through various connexions had arrived. The singer had also come up to chat with us before the show and responded good-naturedly to my gentle attempts to tease him. By the end of the night, he'd thanked me at least four times for coming to see him play and even apologised for not texting. We again made vague noises about hanging out at some future date; unfortunately, most of his shows are deep in the burbs.
He's got some talent though that was mostly evident during the second set, once he'd loosened up somewhat. He and his band play mostly roots rock and blues, which aren't really my jam, particularly when performed by middle-class white guys. (One of their original songs was literally about the importance of smiling.) But they sounded decent, especially when singing together (and masking the weaknesses in their individual voices) and I most likely would have just wasted the evening fiddling around my phone anyhow.
My only regret is that I wish the food had been better. The trout à la meunière was fine and the green beans were good but the black-eyed peas and rice were overcooked to the point of mushiness. Bread pudding is hard to mess up, but they almost did with a "bourbon" sauce with hardly a whiff of bourbon but a ridiculous amount of cinnamon. So if I go back there, it will only be for the music.
DM, it turned out, was there under somewhat false pretenses, as Scruffy had mentioned only dinner and not a show, but he's very phlegmatic by nature. Scruffy, by contrast, was uncommonly irritable. I'd placed my things on the empty chair next to him so I could sit on the banquette and have a view of the entire room, and for some reason this annoyed him so much he demanded I move them and turned the chair around. They left after the first set.
Well before then, a crowd of bears I know through various connexions had arrived. The singer had also come up to chat with us before the show and responded good-naturedly to my gentle attempts to tease him. By the end of the night, he'd thanked me at least four times for coming to see him play and even apologised for not texting. We again made vague noises about hanging out at some future date; unfortunately, most of his shows are deep in the burbs.
He's got some talent though that was mostly evident during the second set, once he'd loosened up somewhat. He and his band play mostly roots rock and blues, which aren't really my jam, particularly when performed by middle-class white guys. (One of their original songs was literally about the importance of smiling.) But they sounded decent, especially when singing together (and masking the weaknesses in their individual voices) and I most likely would have just wasted the evening fiddling around my phone anyhow.
My only regret is that I wish the food had been better. The trout à la meunière was fine and the green beans were good but the black-eyed peas and rice were overcooked to the point of mushiness. Bread pudding is hard to mess up, but they almost did with a "bourbon" sauce with hardly a whiff of bourbon but a ridiculous amount of cinnamon. So if I go back there, it will only be for the music.