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<\/a>Charles Bryant met up there with Rebecca and John Stoll, also known as Grifters and Shills. They are old friends and Rebecca and John invited Charles out to join them for a Saturday night performance. Grifters and Shills have played the venue several times, but this was Charles Bryant\u2019s first show at this far West side stage. All of the performers had played earlier in the day and were working themselves up to turn it on one more time for this nine to midnight (and beyond) show.<\/p>\nG&S started out the evening with a country folk tune called \u201cThe Evil I Know\u201d. Rebecca played bass most of the evening while John started out on an acoustic guitar. They quickly worked themselves up to a high energy level and by the fourth tune, John slipped into the slide guitar for a bluesier feel. He started out the Woody Guthrie standard, \u201cAin\u2019t Got No Home in this World Anymore\u201d with an a Capella intro and then ramped it up once more with the slide and Rebecca singing harmony.<\/p>\n
John then switched to the 3 string cigar box guitar and things really heated up. (I later heard John tell Charles that the 3 string guitar box was great because you could use any three strings you wanted, even a bass string, and could tune it however you wanted. No rules man.) He played it with a slide and really wailed.<\/p>\n
John switched to the banjo for \u201cBought and Sold\u201d while Rebecca continued to sing sweet melodies. They followed that with \u201cWhat We Do\u201d, singing forgive all for what we do. They slowed it down for some \u201cfeely\u201d stuff with \u201cFlying Blind\u201d. They continued to pump the energy into the small audience with \u201cDevil\u2019s on my Side\u201d.<\/p>\n
John picked up the slide again and Rebecca switched to the ukulele. Rebecca slipped a kazoo into her harmonica harness for \u201cKeeping Score\u201d and they closed their set with John on the 3 string cigar box for some rolling country blues on \u201cSun Sinking Low\u201d.<\/p>\n
It took a few minutes for Charles Bryant to get strapped in to the seat on the stage and then he kicked it off with \u201cSix Foot of Troubles\u201d, followed by \u201cTime Won\u2019t Let Me Let Go of You\u201d featuring a very pretty chord. He followed that with a bevy of songs off of the new CD, \u201cKiss the Sun\u201d, doing \u201cIt\u2019s About Love\u201d, \u201cNursing Home\u201d and the highly entertaining \u201cMRI Song\u201d. Charles has a story for every song and they are almost as entertaining as the songs themselves.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>He treated the audience to a new composition called \u201cI\u2019ll Never Get Over You\u201d, then it was back to \u201cKiss the Sun\u201d with the title track, \u201cJust Kill \u2018Em All (A Love Song)\u201d and the very touching \u201cEvan\u2019s Song\u201d. In deference to his wife, who said that he should write a happy song since all of his songs were about death and unhappiness, Charles wrote \u201cThe Happy Song\u201d which extols the virtues of all kinds of good things in life and then uses the refrain, \u201cBut you\u2019re gonna die\u201d, I guess for consistancy\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n