Barefoot and Punjabi

How crazy is it to have a program for a dance party?

Our initial intent was to fuel up for the evening ahead at Secco. It was on the way to UR, there are always such an array of (affordable) wine choices and the food is reliably awesome. Case in point: a lightly fizzy wine from Spain not yet on the menu, Avinyo Petillant (the name means "wine with a prickle") with a highly aromatic nose and loads of effervescence.

There were some lovely new items on the menu, like a Tuscan kale salad with Asian pears, oyster mushrooms, 3-year Gouda with pumpkin seeds and oil that delivered the hearty flavor of kale dressed in its prettiest fall flavors. I coveted the lentil soup with ham hocks and creme fraiche, finding the pig element to be what made the dish sing.

Next to us, a young woman tried flirting with food talk to some nearby guys only to be corrected when she informed them that, "You know, pate is illegal in California."

"You mean foie gras?" one of the guys politely corrected her, grinning at me but allowing the girl to continue to fawn.

House-made smoked paprika sausage with vinegar collard greens was a perfect balance of heat and tang, addicting almost in its complementary flavors. Because we were short on time, we finished with more Petillant and a cheese course of Blue del Moncenesio because it was promised to be a "dense, smokey, meaty bleu."

Not to mention Italian. They weren't lying. With a creamy mouth feel and a fairly assertive taste, it was a stinky cheese lover's dream. We all but inhaled the cheese in order to take our stinky breath to the Modlin Center to see Red Baraat.

Billed as combining a New Orleans street band sound with Bollywood tunes and a go-go beat, I had decided it was a must-see. In fact, when I'd gotten the tickets, the ticket seller had asked if I wanted assigned seats in the balcony or general admission in the orchestra pit.

Are you kidding?

If the Modlin Center is expecting enough dancing for Red Baraat to negate the need for seats, you bet I want general admission. Walking in to a Beatles soundtrack, we saw no one standing down near the stage. Okay, so we'll take seats in the front row and see what happens.

I had to laugh at being handed a program on my way in.

True, it had some information about the band's history in it, including that they were as likely to  be found "throwing down at an overheated and unannounced warehouse party in their Brooklyn neighborhood" as at  Lincoln Center. But there's not a lot more you can say about this kind of performance in the pages of a program.

A friend came by shortly, telling us of his amazement that the audience was filling up the seats in the back of the theater and not the front. Not us. We were close enough to see the band sweat and spit.

When Red Baraat took the stage, they were missing one member, so they were down to only eight.
It was still a lot of musicians: soprano saxophone, trumpet, bass trumpet, trombone, sousaphone, drummer, percussionist and leader Sonny playing dohl, a double-sided north Indian drum he wore slung over his sweaty shoulder.

Sonny explained that "baraat" referred to a procession that happens for a wedding in India and their first song was "Today is My Best Friend's Wedding Day."

It wasn't long after that when Sonny instructed the audience to stand. Next he directed us to move forward and fill the empty space in front of the stage. Then the band began playing and all hell broke loose.

All of a sudden, the pit was filled with people of all ages dancing wildly to music drawn from Punjabi rhythms with a ferocious horn section that brought jazz and funk into the mix.

By the second song, I knew my shoes had been the wrong choice and deposited them on my empty chair in the front row. Back down in front, I saw an Indian-American friend busting his best Bollywood moves, a sight I never thought I'd live to see.

It was pretty impressive.

I said hello to WRIR's DJ Carlito, the orchestrator of the popular Bollywood dance parties around town, telling him I knew he'd be there. The rest of the evening was pretty much a dance party, pure and simple.

Oh, sure, we heard raucous, we heard sinewy, we heard hard-core sousaphone, but never did the beat waver or the dancing crowd stop moving. I only hope the seated people up in the balcony were having a fraction of the good time we were having down in the pit, but I really don't see how.

As the evening progressed, the temperature went up with all the sweaty, dancing bodies and I couldn't help but think that it was the Alice Jepson Theater's first-ever dance party.

May I just say how satisfying it was to be dropping sweat at a venerable location like UR?

I had told my date just before the show began that I wished we were seeing Red Baraat in an overheated warehouse instead of a stately theater.

Wrong.

By the time the energetic show ended almost two hours later, my shirt was stuck to my back, my hair was wet at the roots and anyone looking at me would have thought I'd been in an overheated warehouse dancing all night.

But you don't get a glossy program at a warehouse dance party, now do you?