Saturday, February 20, 2016

New Ol' Brown Shoe at Katrina's

Went to Katrina’s in Gloucester last night (2/19) to see Ol’ Brown Shoe again, and had a fantastic night!

They may have landed a steady gig at Katrina’s, as this is the third month in a row they’ve been scheduled there … though that could be just coincidence.  But there were some significant changes too.  Long-time drummer Jack Howard has left for another band, and they were debuting Kevin D’Angelo.  Tim Walsh on keys is also new, though he’s been with the band for a few months(??).  They were both excellent.

Another change was a new PA.  They had re-purposed some old PA speakers as monitors and after a bit of tuning the whole rig was sounding fantastic.  Katrina’s was on fire!  Here’s their setlist:

Set 1: Bertha, Next Time You See Me, Mr. Charlie, Cumberland Blues, The Harder They Come, Pretzel Logic, Scarlet Begonias> Fire On the Mountain

Set 2: Ramblin' Man, Feel Like a Stranger, Big RR Blues, Ramble On Rose, Mike's Song> Eyes Of the World

A few of the songs didn’t come completely naturally to Kevin yet, but some of them he absolutely killed.  The one that first made me sit up and say, “Hey, this guy’s good!” was Mr. Charlie, and he continued to impress all night, as did all of the band.  Several songs ended with them all clustered around Kevin, beaming.

As I say, they were on that night at Katrina’s and though the crowd dwindled to just some true devotees (Katrina’s had just re-opened after a wedding/honeymoon break for the proprietor so a lot of regulars were hors de combat), we were dancing and whooping it up all over the room.  Lots of fun!