Swing Out Sister On The Bandstand

Saw the group recently at the same local venue of which I've written before. Had never seen them before, not ever, and was highly impressed with a really great, rocking, dedicated show from a band clearly enjoying playing and giving a treat to equally dedicated fans. I was a fan of their music before, and but am even more so now--I've already marked the balance of their CDs to purchase, the next time I go on a buying spree.

Got there with plenty of time, and took what is becoming a more or less usual table for the wife and me. I went with the chili this time, and learned it was a bad choice. No amount of hot sauce could save this dreck, just one step up from Chef Boyardee. Absolute junk, I swear I could taste ketchup in there, at the very least pure tomatoe paste. Bland bulk meat, and no tang of anything, anywhere. No cumin, no salt, no pepper, no spice, no garlic, no onions--just fucking awful. I'll go back to the red beans and rice, I guess.

There was an opener that night, and the remarks of one each Kinnie Starr made it clear she was traveling with SOS as thier opening act. She came out, and looked like a waitress. Had little pigtails on the side of her head, low-slung jeans, the whole post-grunge thing. Small and very young, and very attractive in a pure sort of, ultra-clean young way (how better to describe it?). She then rambled on about some sort of north-central Canadian upbringing, Calgary, her native American heritage, and a "prayer-poem" to open her set. Yeah, from that point on I knew it was going to be flaky. And the promise was fulfilled, many times over.

She blurched away on a far too amped-up electric guitar, trying way too hard to be Alanis. The most memorable thing about her 'electric' work was how her fingers sliding up and down the half-and-half strings were louder than either the chords or her singing. That did nothing for me, although I'm sure there were some folks totally diggin this 'art.' Then she bagged the guitar and had the sound guys play some pre-recorded rhythm and bass bits, over which she kind of danced and did these pseudo-poetry-slam/songs. It was all too contrived, too forced, too much like all of the other neo coffee house glop that passes for original, about love and family, and family and love, and grandma and home-cooked meals, etc. She did one last twirling poem-thingy, in which she said something nonsensical about the US not giving any choice to the people of Haiti (note to Kinnie--what are you talking about, the US intervention in, like, 1993? that was a really long time ago; it's all the UN now, and has been for years. why don't you find a new thing to prattle on about, eh?) and some other junk I've chosen not to remember. Then she was, mercifully, done and gone.

That didn't put SOS onto the stage until 8:15. That's a bit unusual, since the show always starts punctually at 7:30 at this place (way to go, excellent management), and are usually over by 9:30 or so. So, as SOS came on, I figured we'd get a set of maybe an hour at the most, and that would be that.

And I was quite happily disappointed. They ended up playing right up until 10:00, a great, rocking set. All of the oldies, and a couple of songs from the new CD. The band was good, tight, especially the work between the drummer and the bass player. As always, the bass player, the coolest guy in the band, was rocking. I really got a charge out of him, whatever the hell his name was. He was way too cool to get into it, and hardly smiled the whole show, just kept on murdering that gum in his mouth. But man, could he play, and the arrangements of the SOS tunes allowed him to really rock, driving almost every one of the tunes in the set. He even got a couple of great solos, and worked out beautifully on them. Even played the drums for one tune while the drummer did his Brazilian drumset bit right next door.

Corinne Drewery is still looking quite good, although I'd advise her that her frock made her look sort of pregnant, and sort of like mod 70s draperies. Not very flattering, either in the cut or in the pattern. What really stood out were her huge hoop earrings, massive things that kept landing on her shoulders and bouncing about in the most delightfully pleasing ways. They must've been a good 8" in diameter. Very bold, and a great look for her. She can still belt it out, though, and she treated us all to it for the whole show. I did notice her voice falter a couple of times on some of the harmonies, but that was no big deal for me.

One large disappointment was that there were no horns. So many of the SOS hits are horn-driven, even horn-dependent, and there was no horn accompaniment at all. That was a big hole in their sound. That hole could've been plugged with a more robust electronic presence, but all we had was the one guy on keyboards. The second best solution would've been to have another player on guitars, but we only had one guy on guitars, so we had a choice between rhythm and lead, but never both at the same time. Just a little bit more orchestration and a fatter band would've been perfect. Oh, well maybe next time.

They wrapped up the main show at 9:45, 90 minutes after opening. Pretty good. Then they came back and did a 3-song encore, finishing with Twilight World. Great time with a good band.

I'll offer as well that my lovely wife was looking particularly sexy that evening, in a simple suburban-kind-of button-up collared sleeveless shirt. Tight, but not too tight, with that one strategic button left undone (don't know if that was on purpose or not), giving just the perfect amout of view at the edge of her front-clasp black bra, and the tan-to-white transition of her breasts inside. Very sexy, and very nice.

Then home to a Tuesday night, ready for another workin' day on Wednesday.