November 2022 was my kind of month.  My offices are closed for Election Day, Veteran’s Day and two and a half days for Thanksgiving.  That’s pretty excellent, but that’s not why November has been great.  It’s been great because I went to three good rock n roll shows in three consecutive weeks.  Seeing live rock n roll, boys and girls, is my favorite thing in the world to do.  Here’s the rundown:

Sunflower Bean w/ Work Wear and Good Dog Nigel, Southern Café and Music Hall, Charlottesville, VA, November 5, 2022.

I can’t recall where I first heard this band, but I have several of their songs downloaded in my massive digital music library.  This is not a band I would really scramble to see, but my wife and I love the venue and the show landed on a Saturday night.  Also, Charlottesville is close enough (45 minutes) for me to drive home afterwards.  As a final bonus, my daughter is in Charlottesville, so a pre-show dinner was in order as well. 

The opening band, Work Wear, were locals, very young guys and they played a very short set. Good Dog Nigel had a pretty dynamic front-man and the crowd was into it, but I can’t say they were too memorable for me.  By contrast, Sunflower Bean was not only memorable, they were beyond expectations.  Front-woman Julia Cumming was the obvious focal point and she was great.  The band played 13 solid songs, and the ones from their new record that I think of as being a little slow actually rocked pretty hard when played live.  When the lights came up, the crowd worked hard to get an encore but it was not to be.  I’m not sure why, as there seemed to be one on the setlist, but it wasn’t played.  The band did emerge to hang out at its merch table and it looked to me like they were selling quite a few of their orange vinyl copies of the latest record, “Headful of Sugar.”  It was a good night.

              Eliza and the Delusionals w/ FLKL (and someone else), RVA Music Hall, Richmond, VA, November 10, 2022.

Eliza and the Delusionals are another female-fronted band, this one from Australia.  They have a slew of singles/EP’s and finally released a full length called Now and Then.  That record will be on my list of top ten releases for 2022.  The band is currently touring America as the opening act for The Silversun Pickups.  This show however, was a one-off headlining show at the tiny RVA Music Hall.  This is another venue my wife and I love.  It’s very intimate, just like the Southern.  It’s attached to the Capital Ale House, which means there’s a million beers and wines to choose from.  And that, in turn, means we need a hotel since we live about an hour and 45 minutes away. 

Whenever we go to Richmond, which is a very cool city (or at least some of it is), we stay at a really interesting, historic place called The Linden Row Inn.  There was an opener that I honestly forget, and then FLKL came on.  I have no idea what that stands for.  They had a female bassist/vocalist and a female drummer, and two guys with guitars, who also sang a lot.  They came off pretty well really.  Eliza and the Delusionals came on last of course, and I thought they were amazing.  Every song was killer, but “Bed Song” was one of my favorites, and the last tune, “Just Exist” was really great, but honestly, every song they play just shimmers, if that description makes any sense.  We knew that “Just Exist” would be last because if they have a “hit,” that would be it.  We went back to our room at the Linden Row feeling great about the show.  I was a little surprised they didn’t play a longer set though, since they were headlining.  The setlist looks pretty much the same as what they’ve been doing as openers in bigger venues with The Silversun Pickups.

    Kix w/ Sorrow & the Spire and American Jetset, Tally Ho Theater, Leesburg, VA, November 18, 2022.

Kix plays two shows at the Tally Ho in Leesburg every November.  It’s always on a Friday and a Saturday night just before Thanksgiving.  I never know which night to choose, and honestly, I love Kix so much that I would go both nights if I could talk my wife into it. This year, as always, we had a hotel nearby (the drive is about 90 minutes).  We chose Friday night, which was a good thing, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  It seems like for a number of years, the opener was always the same, and I never really liked them.  But this year, after we bought our tickets, they announced Baltimore band American Jetset would open.  I have been listening non-stop to them for a year or two now, so I was totally stoked.  They later added Sorrow & The Spire to the bill, a band I had never heard of.  As show openers, the first of three bands to eventually grace the stage, they played to a sparse but enthusiastic crowd and they were pretty solid.  American Jetset was second, and they sounded excellent as usual.  Their songs are really good, crisp melodic metal with a very unique voice from front man Ian Kaine McGregor.  Guitarist Skinz Scinsacos is outstanding as well.  This is a band worth checking out if you like the genre.   

By the time Kix hit the stage the place was absolutely packed.  They played a fantastic set as always, but if I have one complaint about this beloved band, it would be their steadfast practice of playing almost exclusively from certain records.  If you love the Midnight Dynamite, Hot Wire and Blow My Fuse releases, you’re all set.  And I do love those records.  But I also love the first two records they made, the self-titled debut and especially Cool Kids, and I love Show Business, which I realize no one even knows, and also the latest, Rock Your Face Off.  Kix always includes “Love Me with Your Top Down” from the aforementioned latest record, but there are others I would like to hear from that record and from other records that are not represented. 

Anyway, all was rocking along great as we reached the end of the set.  The drummer, Jimmy “Chocolate” Chalfant (an original member) had just finished a drum solo.  Front man Steve Whiteman came forward and told the crowd they were ready to play the last song (which is inevitably “Cold Blood”).  Whiteman said “We don’t do encores, they’re stupid.  Why am I gonna walk over there and wait for y’all to yell a lot-- you can see me standin’ there, and then come back?”  I totally agree with that sentiment.  Anyway, before the opening chords of “Cold Blood” could even truly get started, drummer Chalfant slumped over his kit.  A roadie pulled him up by his armpits and they got him to the floor, but he was clearly not okay.  The lights came up and the show was declared to be over.  Paramedics were called.  It was truly a very scary and sad moment.  I am super happy to report that he survived what we now know was some kind of cardiac event (he had a full-blown heart attack a year ago and was replaced for a time with a fill-in drummer).  The scheduled Saturday night show was of course postponed.  Let’s all wish the best for Jimmy Chalfant.

Vocalist Steve Whiteman is far right, at center stage is Brian Forsythe on guitar – Brian also plays in a great band called Rhino Bucket.

Well, there you have it.  Three shows in three cities in three weeks (actually it’s 14 days, which by anyone’s math is two weeks, but it was three different weekends and my blog title wouldn’t sound as good if I said two).  Bonus videos below.

Sunflower Bean – “Who Put You Up to This”

  Eliza and the Delusionals – “Just Exist” (make sure you watch this until the end, or jump to the 3:03 mark where the song really takes off.)

  Kix – “Girl Money”  (This is a year ago at the Tally Ho in Leesburg – good video.)

JCE, or John to his friends, was born in 1963 in the Nation’s Capital. He grew up in the VA suburbs of D.C. His earliest musical memories are tied to a transistor radio with a single earphone that he carried everywhere listening to AM radio. At this point he still listens to a steady diet of punk, power pop, metal (Faster Pussycat=Yes, Megadeath=No), alt country and anything that has plenty of good guitar and drums.