Back to one of my favorite venues to see one of my favorite bands. And I was finishing up my birthday weekend in excellent company – rtb, Mrs. Devereaux and her friend.
For dinner I had the excellent duck tacos and their vegetable of the day, which was cauliflower. My drink of choice was a very good Prosecco.
First up was comedian Phil Hanley. He started slow but ended up pretty good – not belly laugh funny but he had some funny observations. There was one woman in the audience that he kept going back to for some funny little bits.
Poundcake is a cover band. Before you judge, they are a very good band, who cover rockabilly and old country songs and their in-between, or frequently during the song, banter will have you belly laughing. Poundcake is Teddy Thompson (vocals, guitar), Jeff Hill (upright bass, vocals), and Ethan Eubanks (drums, vocals).
Deva Mahal (daughter of Taj Mahal – Thompson seems to have a thing about working with the children of famous musicians) joined them for a wonderful version of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis Tennessee.” Charlie (didn’t catch his last name) joined them on piano and accordion and did such a great job that the audience was applauding his every solo.
From the very start Thompson was having trouble remembering lyrics or guitar parts. For one song he’d forgotten how to end it and they kept going on and on until Eubanks finally sang the guitar part for Thompson. While tuning, Thompson started a long talk about what was available at the merch table and finally Eubanks accused him of turning it into a TED Talk. The funniest bit was about the water provided for the band – it was in cartons and had a strange listing of ingredients including dissolved solids.
Most of the songs were songs they’ve done when I’ve seen them in the past. A new one (for me) was Hill doing Sam Cooke’s “Cupid.” We also heard an Elvis medley, “Hit the Road Jack,” “Why Can’t He Be You?,” “The Race is On,” “Little Sister,” and “Bye, Bye Love.” They were supposed to play until 9:45pm and ended up playing until almost 10:30pm. If you want to hear some of the best rockabilly/old traditional country in town and also get a comedy act, you need to see Poundcake.
By Carene Lydia Lopez
