by jon bosworth jaxvillain@yahoo.com
Downtown Jacksonville is often boring on a Friday night, but this past Friday was an exception. If there were an influx of school kids flooding the streets because of summer, I would understand, but it seemed to be the usual assortment of Jacksonvillians, only they all happened to converge downtown on this particular night.
My original plan was to go to TSI to catch Tuffy. I knew that there was a beer fest going on in the old Haydon Burns library, so I figured I’d stay away from Adams and Monroe. However, as I came down Adams to give the area a quick look, I saw Shangrala carrying equipment into London Bridge. If they were playing, it might be worth it to stop.
I circled the block eight times and finally found a parking space up on Bay Street. The beer fest crowd was vast yet harmless- a yuppie bunch who wore matching outfits purchased at the Town Center and clutched their purses all the way into the building. They must have each driven individually, because it was harder to find parking than if it were ArtWalk Wednesday.
By the time I made my way back to London Bridge, the Shang gang was frustrated because London Bridge had double-booked the evening. Shangrala and A Slight Breeze had been promoting their London Bridge show for weeks on MySpace, but London Bridge had booked a cover band to play jukebox hits all night. So Jude Kahle, the singer for Shangrala, Brandon Highfill, the guitarist for A Slight Breeze, and I walked over to Burrito Gallery and asked Marco, one of Burrito Gallery’s owners, if the show could be performed there.
By ten o’clock, Shangrala was rocking Burrito Gallery’s Urb Garden, but I wasn’t there to catch the beginning. I walked over to TSI and watched Joel Land’s new act.
When I saw him take the stage I was thrilled. If you’ve never seen Joel Land before, he is a local comedian that performs his standup act before local bands in area venues. Usually, he gets up in front of the crowd after the band has set up and tells some jokes to get the crowd warmed up. His observational humor is funny and insightful. But on Friday he changed up his shtick.
He had a friend join him onstage to play some minimalist drums, while Joel had an electric guitar on his lap, which he played with a slide. It created a musical backdrop for his routine that added more punch to his punch lines. It was as hilarious as ever, but it made his act fit seamlessly into a live music show. He developed a cross between spoken word, experimental performance art, comedy, and rock. It was a terrific idea that was executed perfectly.
After Joel’s routine, I hoofed it back to Burrito Gallery to catch the last of Shangrala’s set. As always, it was remarkable, even if I only got to see a few songs. Their music filled up the valley created by the buildings that surround the Urb Garden, yet without overpowering the listeners standing just a foot away from the stage, which was spilling over with band members.
During the change over, I walked back to TSI. Although it was the most exercise I had gotten in weeks, I love it when there is more than one great event going on downtown. It’s worth walking back and forth. Even if a large portion of the other people on the streets were beer festers who rarely drop a dime on local shows, it’s always pleasant to know there are so many people taking advantage of the city. It gives downtown an electrical charge.
At TSI, Tuffy was performing their laid-back, lo-fi, ramshackle set. Their music is relieving to listen to and catchy in an offbeat sort of way. It’s like seeing Eric’s Trip or an acoustic Guided by Voices, and they were everything I wanted Mice Parade to be when they played Jack Rabbits a couple of weeks back. I wanted to stay for more of their set, but I had never seen A Slight Breeze, and by now I was certain they would be set up and playing. I killed my beer and headed back, walking past the people leaving a graduation at the Florida Theatre and into the Urb Garden as A Slight Breeze leaned into their instrumental set.
Instrumental bands often tend to scare average rock fans away, since they don’t have singable choruses. Many people don’t know how to get into music that isn’t built with the typical verse-chorus-verse formula, but there is something about Burrito Gallery. Marco has trained his patrons to expect jazz, avant-garde and experimental music projects. Because of that tone, and because A Slight Breeze and Shangrala drew most of those patrons in, the crowd hung in there and let A Slight Breeze take them on their post-rock mind-trip.
I hope some of those beer festers and graduating visitors to the urban core stepped away from their microcosms to enjoy a little of the culture that makes downtown so cool, namely our local music and club scene. But either way, I always revel in a great night downtown, and Friday was one of the best. It was so good that it didn’t end until the sun was about to come up Saturday morning. After all, how often can you see two shows in a single night and still have time to crawl the pubs afterward? Only downtown.
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