Last night fellow blogger, Barry of Inn of the Last Home, was playing with his band, The Atomic Horns, at Ray’s. Thought I’d drop in at 10pm, enjoy a few tunes and one beer, and be home by 11:30pm. Four beers later, I stroll (not stagger) home at 2am. Still, next time I’m sticking to my one drink limit no matter how many free or unrequested beers the waiter brings.
The Atomic Horns surprised me. I expected to see maybe three musicians on stage. I counted eight! Plus a sound engineer. Later the evening the count rose to 10 musicians. Nothing quite compares to a live band with brass in it! There is a life, a crispness, to real brass that does not convey itself in our compressed mp3 audio. Equally as great were the strings and keyboards. The lead guitar danced on the fret board. Barry and the other keyboardists made me feel like we were standing beside Ray Charles in the music store in The Blues Brothers. Speaking of The Blues Brothers, they made an appearance! But we will get to that. The vocals were fantastic. Each singer nailed the respective cover song and sounded just like the original.
My only complaint with the show was the volume. It seemed to keep creeping up and at times was almost unbearable. Perhaps that’s just my old ears. I had to walk to the other side of the building to give my ears a rest and noticed a couple of people who had been watching the band had moved to the other side of the building to be able to converse. I found it a bit frustrating to only be able to talk to my friends on napkins and between songs. This is a shame because The Atomic Horns have a great show. They do bits. Jake and Elwood came out complete with with handcuffed briefcase holding the sacred microphone. There were other innovative tidbits in front of the stage but I will simply encourage you to see The Atomic Horns to experience them!
I give the show a high recommendation. As a side note, I have to admit being back in a sports bar and grill after all these years was a little weird and funny at the same time. It made for good people watching. I’m happy my bar fly years are long behind me.
