Looking for A Place to Get Surly

Ocean temperature : 58 (but it rose to 74 degrees by 5 p.m.)
Best song heard randomly on the radio: Stay (new!) Bo Deans

Another locals' haunt sucked me in tonight, but this time it was for the sake of music. I'd seen that Cracker was playing at Kelly's Tavern and the draw of live music was too strong to ignore, even though I'd heard dire tales of the Kelly's crowd. I wasn't scared by any stretch; I think I've pretty much seen it all when it comes to live music crowds anyway.

It had been five years since I'd last seen Cracker live and 17 years since I saw them the first time. My first time was memorable because it was at the Flood Zone in the Bottom and, at the time, beer was all they carried and even then I didn't drink beer. But it was one of my earlier shows alone and although I was meeting a guy there later, I decided to fortify with a golden beverage, despite my distaste for same. It was also my last attempt at beer drinking, if that tells you anything.

Luckily Kelly's served more than beer, so imbibing was not a challenge for me (eating, on the other hand...although a girl is always safe with a Hebrew National hot dog, at least this girl is) this Cracker go-round. I'm not sure what it says about the place, but there were a lot of shooters in what looked like urine specimen cups being served at Kelly's during the show. Am I drawing you a mental picture here?

Cracker took the stage like the pros that they are. They were perfectly mic'd and the sound was exactly right for the room. This was a drinking/talking crowd, so the band had to play over them, but they seemed to know that in advance and those of us who were there to hear the music were treated to excellent sound throughout.

Early in their set, they kicked into "Teen Angst" and David Lowery cocked an eyebrow at the crowd as if daring them to pretend like they didn't know the song. Eventually even the loudest talkers were singing or worse, dancing along, proving Lowery's point. I cracked up when, motioning toward the dance floor, Thing 3 observed, "Whole lotta probably shouldn't going on over there."

Bottom line: Cracker played an excellent show with superior sound while Thing 3 and I observed a crowd unlike any we'd ever seen, or really, need to see again. But crowds don't matter, music does and it was great to get my music itch scratched at the beach.

And, yes, we stuck out like the non-locals that we were. But given the seemingly un-musically inclined crowd in this case, I was just fine with that.