City’s bicentennial party blends musical styles, carnival fun
Posted Mar 30, 2019 at 10:45 PM
Predicted rain dropped only in scattered moments on the city’s Bicentennial Bash at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater, bringing out ponchos, and dropping already mild temperatures to an even more pleasant spring day.
The kidstuff of carnival bouncy houses, a merry-go-round and Ferris wheel stood in the shadow of the Lurleen Wallace Bridge spans, shadowed from the worst of sun and sprinkle. The Blind Boys of Alabama, stunning in matching purple suits, kicked off the main stage with a more gospel-blues flavored version of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” which ironically cued some of the hardest rains. But by the end of the venerable — origins in 1939 — gospel group’s soulful set, the crowds had deepened, even as the skies stayed darkened.
The 21st century arrived with Moon Taxi, a funky rock band out of Nashville, formed around a pair of friends from Vestavia, Trevor Terndrup and Tommy Putnam. The quintent’s played through here a lot, but noted that this marked the Alabama debut of their new song “Now’s The Time,” anchored by a “Gilligan’s Island” theme song keyboard riff, intentionally or not.
They closed with earworm singles “Good as Gold,” while confetti cannons fired, and their No. 1 “Two High,” a hopeful jaunt inspired in part by the 2017 Women’s March. It reached the top of charts in part thanks to its use in a 2018 Jeep commercial.
The T-Town 200 Stage, set to the east of the main amphitheater stage, offered contrasting sounds, with acoustic old-time songs from Early James and The Latest and the Allen Tolbert Unit, though funky Jus Gruv fit in with rhythms from the headliners, and Matt Jones’ original work could have harmonized well with the literate Southern-rock of closer Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit.
The jam kicked into high gear with the Commodores, one of the most successful ever Alabama-born bands, selling more than 60 million records over a decades-long career. As with all the acts, they kept to schedule, limiting them to 45 minutes in which they could fit only a fraction of their hits, but came down hard with “Too Hot Ta Trot,” spotlighing James Dean J.D. Nicholas, who replaced Lionel Richie as lead singer, and the funky “Lady (You Bring Me Up),” not to be confused with the ballad “Three Times a Lady,” which came later, after intros.
Original member William “Wak” King, a Birmingham native, took a horn solo on the slinky “Easy,” then helped intro band members old and new.
“We call him Mr. Brick House,” King said, of Walter Orange, singer, percussionist and keyboardist. After a slinky “Night Shift,” the band of course built to an extended “Brick House” closer.
Though not cut from the Mick Jagger scrawny singer mold, Birmingham soul belter Paul Janeway, the voice of St. Paul & The Broken Bones, nonetheless is a pure rock star from thinning hair to two-toned shoes. He took the stage draped in an iridescent black robe, looking something like precious metal, and something like pristine videotape. The Birmingham-based neo-soul unit ripped through a tight trio of “LivWithOutU,” “Flow With It” and “Like a Mighty River.” During the latter’s psychedelic breakdown, Janeway whipped the robe-cape over his head like a Sith Lord. He burned on “Grass is Greener,” and the band’s horn section dueled and dueted during “Gotitbad.” They’re so old-school, one of their hottest songs, “Call Me,” refers to actually dialing a phone.
“Hope everybody’s had fun,” Janeway said, as they launched into the stirring “Broken Bones and Pocket Change,” which is, like so many of their songs, about lost or missing loves. “Thank y’all very much for paying attention and coming out here to see us.”
Janeway left the stage and sang throughout the Amphitheater crowd, climbing atop the sound booth, falling to his knees, pounding the copper roofing, never losing the melody, and never losing the robe.
Shoals-area native Isbell came out determined to fit a lot of songs into his hour-long slot, kicking off with a “24 Frames” that wrapped up faster than the recorded single: “You thought God was an architect/now you know/he’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow/And everything you built/that’s all for show goes up in flames/In twenty-four frames.”
After an equally rollicking and yet concise “Hope the High Road,” Isbell brought out an acoustic guitar for “Alabama Pines,” noting “We’re so happy to be back in our home state.”
His beautiful wife Amanda Shires, an accomplished singer-songwriter herself, took the fiddle solo on “Outfit,” an elegy to the “dichotomy of the Southern thing” the Drive-by Truckers often talk about, one Isbell wrote when playing with that band.
The night closed with a fireworks display. Attendance figures weren’t available, but perhaps because of weather worries, the amphitheater never reached capacity for the free event.
