Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings Funk It Up

I went to the Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings show at Maymont with a couple of friends and my big pink blanket (GayRVA represents). Without a doubt, it was the most interactive show I've been to in ages, maybe ever. Beforehand the audience was told that Sharon likes a dancing crowd down in front and eager fans accommodated immediately (yes, Hunter, you dancing fool, I saw you front and center). Then the show started with Binky Griptite and the Dap Kings on stage priming the crowd for her arrival and she would have been worth waiting much, much longer for.

Early on, she pulled a guy onstage to dance while she sang and he did his best to keep up. After she found out his name was Chris, she asked if he had a girlfriend. When he said no, she responded, "Well, you will after tonight." He wasn't the last guy she invited up either.

Eventually she invited a group of women on stage to shake their groove things and they were all completely into it (not to mention better dancers than the guys). As the song wound down, she had each dance her way off stage to the applause of the crowd. Local entrepreneur Marshe Wyche was last and milked her moment for all it was worth while the crowd ate it up.

Sharon Jones is a tiny woman with a big voice who showed the audience how it's done with a song that featured her doing the swim, the jerk, the mashed potato, the pony and a few other dances I've forgotten already. The Dap Kings were perfectly right on backing her up start to finish; it's no wonder Amy Winehouse's Back to Black CD grabbed so many ears.

Most of us stood throughout the performance, partly to see and partly because it was tough to sit still with a rocking r & b band like these guys on stage. The perfect early May weather only made things better; if you did lay down, the cloudless sky allowed for the perfect stargazing vantage point while the music floated over and around you.

As expected, I saw at least a dozen people I knew in the wildly diverse audience, although my friend and I had actually expected a much larger crowd, not that it was small by any means.
I'm just saying, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings on stage in the middle of Maymont on a warm spring evening is a pretty irresistible event, in my humble opinion.

Afterwards, I stopped by my neighborhood joint because I'd been asked to by a friend who had to work but wanted to hear all about the show. Then a couple of customers at the bar started asking questions about the band and the set-up and next thing I knew, I was doing a blow-by-blow for everyone's benefit. They all, it seemed, wanted to hear about the new R & B band kicking it old school.

I did my best to convey what I'd experienced, which I'll be the first to admit in no way resembled actually being there. Uncompromising funk needs to be felt, not described.

Sorry for even wasting the blog space in my feeble attempt to do so. Just go listen to "One Hundred Days" or "I Learned the Hard Way" and get back with me.