3/12: Eli “Paperboy” Reed @ the Bell House

I bought this ticket well in advance, having seen him on Fabchannel (Fabchannel recently shut down, which is a painful loss.  You can watch clips from some of the hundreds of concerts they had online at YouTube.).

The opener was the Sweet Divines, a group of young women I was excited to see.  I had seen their name around, but hadn’t heard them outside of a video on YouTube, and I was elated when they started playing southern soul, with its distinctly driving rhythm and cajun blues infusion.  It’s some of the best music to see live.  They had a solid backing band and their voices were spectactular.  But by the end of the show, they were “having such a good time” (woman behind me, italics hers) and it seemed like they were putting it on a bit.  In that case you just tell yourself it’s a show, after all, and let it slide because they really did sound wonderful the entire time and it was an entertaining set.

Eli “Paperboy” Reed’s songs were in the same vein as the Sweet Divines, but louder and harder.  Apparently his dad was a music critic, so he group up around a multitude of various genres and ultimately settled on soul as the style he’d stick with.  He’s slightly awkward on stage and a couple of the guys in the band try a little too hard, but he has a supremely authentic sound, which is rare.  His live show didn’t grab me like I hoped it would, probably because he falls into the “sound just like the album” bucket and I am relatively familiar with his repertoire.  I also had my first unfortunate  experience with the Bell House’s sound:  Eli’s guitar – a major focal point of this particular band – was completely inaudible for the first 3 songs or so, which was a poor showing and distracting for everyone there.

Next up:  Getting caught up with the Fauxges at the Bellhouse