Around
9:00pm, Rhythm Republik started their tribute to the Prince project "Sign
O' The Times" ....the
only problem is that EYE didn't arrived until about 9:20pm...EYE couldn't get
in2 the actual room where the performance was being held 'cuz they had a full
house...2 people at a time were let in when other patrons left. The max
capacity is 445, but there was a LOT of space in the room 4 more bodies (GO
FIGURE!! THIS IS THE BAMCAFE! NOTHING LIKE THE WETLANDS......HMMM!!) Anyway, from what EYE heard, the
drums sounded pretty off-beat when they performed the actual song "Sign O'
The Times". EYE heard "EYE Could Never Take the Place of Your
Man" and some female lead vocals on "Strange Relationship" &
"Slow Love" (EYE barely recognized "Strange Relationship",
though) Chris Robb's lead vocal performance on "The Ballad of Dorothy
Parker" was actually very, very good and so was his spicy synthesizer
soloing! "Adore" was sung by Chandlar....hmmm...as far as falsetto
vocals go, EYE would have 2 say that EYE've heard better. Another guy
played acoustic guitar and performed lead vocals on "The Cross".....his
vocals were just a little bit low. Steve Wallace's lead vocals on the last
verse of the song were great (loud and passionate). "Starfish and
Coffee" featured the lead vocals of the ringleader himself, Mabili Ajamu.
"If EYE Was Ur Girlfriend" featured the same wedding organ riffs from
the album (the intro 2 the song) and lead vocals by Chandlar, who sung it
mostly in tenor range....a great performance! The ending of the set was the
funky, crowd-pleasing tune "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night",
complete with lots of funky, funky horn blowing!! All of this music backed by
the fabulous band of RHYTHM REPUBLIK, which included Mark Bass on bass and The
Pearl on keyboards. The set was over at 11:00pm.
Submit suggestions or comments to david.brooks@brookenstein.com