I am in this fantasy football league dominated by these excessively wealthy plaintiff lawyers. I hate them all... like poison. There are some non lawyers in the group. Perhaps they are not the worst people in the world, perhaps they just remind me of what I am....though not successful. Anyway, one of them had some extra tickets to see the Derailers http://derailers.com/ at a house concert last Saturday. Since my son Jon and his girlfriend were coming into town for Spring Break I was able to snap them up. I have enjoyed the Derailers for a long time. They have a Bakersfield/Buck Owens country style that has always worked for me but I had lost track of them several years ago. For the chance to catch up with them and to go to something cool like a house concert and to go with wife, son and son's girlfriend seemed like a fun night.We arrived at around 8 which was when the band was going to start playing. We were just in a little neighborhood right in Clayton and it was at the Woods house, thus the name The Wood House Concert Series http://woodhouseconcerts.com/. We dragged our cooler on wheels (the Soulard stroller) down the street and to their door and surprisingly could not hear music until we got to the door. We walked in and paid our money to the house owner who showed us where to put the cooler and where the food was. it was a nice pot luck. They were great. We wandered in after about the 3rd song (after church youth spaghetti dinner and auction).The band was playing straight back. and back there was a big family room/kitchen, cleared out with.... the band playing in the corner. And not a cramped corner. They were spread out with piano, pedal steel, drums bass and lead guitar.. There was track lighting on the ceiling arranged in a square around where the band is playing.
We parked in the hall. Then the wife and I found some seats. Then we ate and watched and it was awesome. Nice pedal steel. Nice electric piano. Nice guitar and vocals. It was all good and all west coast country. My son and the girlfriend enjoyed. The beer came out of the coolers and before I knew it it was break. Walked around the house and admired the set up. They had pics on the wall of the bands who had played and I had seen about 2/3 of them but I had seen them at The Duck Room or The Pageant, or the late great Mississippi Nights or even worse, Off Broadway where they might not have even come on stage till midnight and I would have spent their whole set thinking....OH MY GOD, I am old. I cannot stay up this late. I am weak. But here in this nice clean house in Clayton, I was seeing a great band from 5 feet away and I was going to be home by 11:00. It felt like Christmas.
The crowd was pleasant and respectful but was at least 1/2 music lovers. And they were nice. And i was not the oldest one there. At one point I spotted one kid younger then my son. While having another beer and walking around we improved seating positions and people were nice enough to let my son and his girl sit. The second set was better and closed with a great, gratuitous crowd pleasing sing along which included some classic rock hits and even some Beatles. It was great. I said our thanks. We grabbed our cooler and we did not stay around for any other encores because there would not be any. There was a hard ceiling of 10:30 and they had played 10 minutes through it. I bought the live Derailers CD on the way out.
It was a great night. It was made clear to me that they have too many people who love this. He limits it to about 80 people. I asked to be on the mailing list and he gave me his card and told me to send him a wish list. I did. Now I just got to keep wishing but while I was there I was joyous, jealous and thinking again that I might have wasted my life by not having this idea and carrying it out. It is clear that he makes no money doing it but does it for love. He has neighbors cooperation and houses and feeds the bands. And his kids get to meet them and he gets to talk to them and hit some of them at brilliant times.
Joyous and Jealous. Perhaps one of my dreams will come in or perhaps I will luck into another quality show. It is nice to know that this type of thing is out there. makes me proud to be a St. Louisian. Is that right?
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On an unrelated note I have been reading the email postings of this guy regarding music and modern culture. He knocks me out.http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
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