Mickey Raphael Plays Well With Others
Mickey Raphael Welcomes Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Billy F. Gibbons, Margo Price, T Bone Burnett and More for Debut Headline
Read MoreMickey Raphael Welcomes Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Billy F. Gibbons, Margo Price, T Bone Burnett and More for Debut Headline
Read MoreLast Sunday I was able to cross a venue off my concert bucket list by going with my wife and daughter to the Blue Note in NYC. My 17-year-old loves jazz and wanted to go to a jazz club while we were visiting New York for Thanksgiving week. If you are going to go to your first jazz club it has to be the Blue Note, one of the most recognized clubs in the US.
Read MoreThey are the self-described “Dance Commanders” and that aptly chronicles the status of their compilations. Funk has collided with electronica and slammed danced with jazz and soul with punk-EDM and psychedelia ploughing into the onslaught. Are you getting it yet? You will just have to listen for yourselves. In fact, I implore you to dive into the pool. The water is nice, but you cannot see the bottom and if your feet do not touch, you are in the right place.
Read MoreDays One and Two of Bourbon & Beyond were highly organized and very strict when it came to the front gates. The event was constantly posting on their socials and emailing out rules and regulations for standards that they wanted upheld throughout the long weekend. You could only bring in chairs if you had a “Chair Pass”, which cost gobs of extra money, and they sold out in 45 minutes. You could bring in a towel to sit on if your towel met specific requirements as far as size and, get this, thickness. Water bottles had to be clear, and empty upon arrival, and not have a capacity of over 20ozs. There were also lists of “Do’s and “Don’ts” that festival runners hammered into your brain repeatedly. Then came day three.
Read MoreSo now we reside in Day Two of Bourbon & Beyond. Day one nearly killed me as I realized that 10 hours standing in the sun after driving three hours to get here was too long of a day for this 50-year-old. There is nowhere to hide at this festival. There are tents around the Expo Center, but the tents seem hotter as they are jammed with people and there is no catching a breeze. I applaud the staff as they have done a great job of handing out free cold waters to people in the pit areas in front of the stage. These are certainly the danger areas of the festival. I’ve seen a few people get carried out due to the heat and the medical tents keep a heavy rotation of people getting IV’s. So, Day Two, I decided I was going to dial it back a bit so that I could go a little heavier the following days. It’s all about pace, right?!
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