Boston Rock Photos And Stuff
So much good music at Radio this past Friday night! Quality tunes upstairs and down all night long. I shot down to Moe’s Lounge after Reverse’s amazing set just in time to catch Tad & Kate doing their thing as part of Keith Pierce’s new series, Practice. Keith even jumped behind the kit for a couple of tunes. His Mellow Bravo band mate, Seager Tennis, followed suit on bass. This is pretty cool. I want more!
Mellow Bravo is the band you should be begging to play at your basement kegger. Sure, the cops are gonna come and bust the thing up, but it’ll be awesome until then…
There’s this movie called I Get Off. It stars a white 1974 Pontiac Trans AM driven by Sheila, played by an otherwise unknown actress who now makes her meager living charging people $20 a pop to have their picture taken with her and a replica of said car at comic conventions. In this cinematic masterpiece there are bar fights, mustaches, a Columbo knock-off police detective, bricks and bricks of an unspecified narcotic and a guy in a banana suit.
In the climactic scene, the Trans Am races head-on toward a tanker truck in the desert. The windows are down. Sheila’s hair is blowing in the wind. She lifts her sunglasses. Her eyes are focused. There’s a shotgun on the passenger seat. Her hand reaches down to turn up the radio.
Mellow Bravo blares from the speakers as a sly smile comes across Sheila’s face.
Then it gets messy.
Mellow Bravo played their Rumble semi-final set as if it was their last ever. I suspect they play all of their shows this way.
What a fun band. I wouldn’t doubt that Mellow Bravo fans think the band has a middle name. I, for one, found myself muttering “Mellow F’n Bravo” underneath my breath more than once throughout their supercharged set. The band was firing on all cylinders, and singer Keith Pierce was their spark plug. Jeffery Fultz and Andrew Doherty channeled every classic rock guitar riff they’ve ever heard. Dave Jarvis on drums and Seager Tennis on bass kept things moving along with reckless abandon. Jess Collins helped make the whole thing gel on keys. She also happened to explode when they put a microphone in her hand and gave her center stage.
Semi-Final Night #1 of the 2011 Rock ‘N’ Roll Rumble was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. Spirit Kid won the night, but any of the bands could have moved on given a different set of judges or a groundhog seeing his shadow or what have you. Mellow Bravo, Sidewalk Driver, and Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (and Spirit Kid, of course) were just that good. What an awesome night.
