The Chris Robinson Brotherhood at The Cellar Door

Well, seeing the Chris Robinson Brotherhood at The Cellar Door in Visalia was an absolutely KILLER good time, ESPECIALLY for a mere $15. It could have been BETTER in some ways, but come on…fifteen fucking dollars, y’know? Just to start with the “bad” shit, to get it out of the way and make everybody shit their pants in joy—nobody reads my blogs for any GOOD, UPBEAT, JOYOUS, SUNSHINE-UP-YOUR-ASS BULLSHIT anyway, now do they?—the three MAIN bummers were:

(A) I couldn’t browbeat ONE STUPID FUCKING FRIEND into going along.
(B) I couldn’t get hammered as hell drinking Heineken and other good beer.
(C)The band didn’t play NEARLY the setlist I would’ve liked.

Obviously, reason (B) is just immature, crybaby horseshit to begin with, and it’s not as though I’m NOT accustomed by now to going places—concerts, casinos, fishing trips—where I would MUCH RATHER be shotgunning brewskis and gulping tequila with buddies instead of settling for fucking Sparkletts bottled water. So fuck reason (B) anyway. Reason (A) is just natural, isn’t it? Concerts are ALWAYS better with friends along, for reasons too many to list— to help remember things you DON’T remember until it’s brought up to you (“Hey, remember that badass riff in “Hard To Handle”? That shit was COOL!”), to help remember where you parked the goddamned car, as wingman while you’re trying to talk the chick in the tight leather pants into wrapping her tits around your cock (well, give you a phone number at least), as backup when the aforementioned chick’s plastered boyfriend finds out that you’re trying to give his girlfriend a gynecological exam 2 feet away from him, etc. But reason (C) was the biggest problem by far, and IT didn’t even bother me too much.

Although I’m obviously pretty fond of the band, you can’t really classify me as the world’s BIGGEST Black Crowes fan. There’s a whole string of their albums that I’ve never even HEARD or only heard once or twice long ago (LIONS, BY YOUR SIDE, THREE SNAKES AND ONE CHARM, AMORICA) and don’t even REMEMBER hearing. And I knew ZERO of Chris Robinson’s solo work. I just happen to like Robinson’s voice and style of music and was rather excited to get to experience it in an intimate bar setting, which I hoped would sound better than an arena concert sounds to me generally. And it did, thankfully—otherwise I would’ve been REALLY disappointed. I was really amazed when I only recognized ONE song (“Appaloosa” from BEFORE THE FROST…) in the entire 2-hour-plus set but the great sound made all the shit that I didn’t recognize just as enjoyable as what I did. Some were supposed to be new Chris Robinson Brotherhood originals but many of the other patrons seemed to know most of the words to most of the tunes so they must have been older Chris Robinson solo tunes (his first solo album, NEW EARTH MUD, was available for $10 at the door so I grabbed it—it made a better souvenir than the ass-ugly $25 fucking T-shirts did).

I had decided to try my iPod Touch’s video recording ability for the first time here, and I was quite pleasantly surprised AND quite pissed off, too—surprised because, as it turned out, it worked FAR better than I thought it would, mainly in the audio recording department, and pissed because I didn’t try to get more of the show. Due to a number of reasons (such as getting a tired arm from holding the son of a bitch in the air all night, my expectation of a muffled-sounding, unwatchable video, my fear that the battery charge would run out quickly while recording, and the fact that I kept waiting for them to play SOMETHING I fucking recognized) I only recorded fragments of like 3 songs, but when I checked them out on the computer after I got home they sounded MORE than acceptable in terms of audio quality and it didn’t burn up much of the battery’s charge either. Live’n’learn, I guess…next fucking concert I’ll know better.

Of course, the next concert I see probably won’t be in such a cool place. I really liked The Cellar Door when I volunteered to help with my Alpha Gamma Sigma clubmate Donna’s charity concert against child abuse there a few years back (I ended up working the door for 8 fucking hours), and it hasn’t changed any. The room immediately to your right when you first walk in was used as the band’s dressing room or backstage area or whatever the fuck you want to call it—it was where they served up the food during the charity concert. I figured it was probably where the band was hanging out at, especially after I smelled all the burning incense floating out of there every time somebody ran in or out of the room, which was often (another clue that the band was in there). I was standing just outside the room, leaning against a cooler full of wine and beer with my back to the door when the band came out to take the stage—all of a sudden the dude with the Jesus Christ hair who’d just walked past me turns around to say something and it’s Chris: he wasn’t talking to ME, he was talking to his guitar player who was still back in the room. I could’ve shook the dude’s hand or asked for a picture but I decided not to bother him seeing as how I’m not a 16-year-old groupie or some shit.

The crowd was small, relatively well-behaved, and mostly OLD. The average age of an audience member was probably somewhere in between “not old enough for the Guinness Book of World Records but too old to fuck without throwing their back out.” There were a couple of people there that were younger than me, quite a few people that appeared to be about my age, and TONS of AARP members boogeying away. This probably contributed to the crowd’s good behavior—after all, it’s kind of hard to rock out hardcore when you’re worried about breaking your hip or losing your dentures.But I definitely enjoyed the laid-back vibe.

Well, I’ll be looking out for a debut album from the Chris Robinson Brotherhood—from what I heard played that night it will definitely be worth checking out.