I Got My Flower, I Got My Power

Life kept me so busy I almost didn't make Halloween.

But once I got started on the rest of my life, I was off to eat for a living and then find some music.

If it's All Hallow's Eve in Richmond, it must mean there's a cover band show.

Tonight's was at the Camel and featured a David Bowie cover band (rumored to be The Men Who Sold the World) and my favorite guys in wigs, Zep Replica.

I'm no fool. I knew that the audience would be predominantly guys.

It was.

I had missed The Men and arrived to Zep just starting "Black Dog," a fitting first song for me since I distinctly recall it being my favorite song on the jukebox in my high school cafeteria.

No, seriously.

Costumes abounded and with a supposed $100 prize for the best, some were quite clever.

A bowl of spaghetti. An Hassidic Jew. Freddie Mercury. A priest.

Next to me in the second row was a girl with the best literary costume, at least in my opinion.

She was Ms. Frizzzle, you know, the Ms. Frizzle who had the magic school bus and was always taking her class on mad adventures.

We got talking somehow and she told me how much she was enjoying seeing the band for the first time.

I told her I'd seen them several times.

"Which one is your favorite?" she asked, reminding me of a game I play with certain girlfriends at the Listening Room.

I turned the tables and asked who her fave was. "The bass player!" she said.

It just so happens that the bass player is a good friend and a big part of the reason I was there, so her answer pleased me no end.

Meanwhile, the lead singer was inciting the crowd, saying, "So, yea, y'all are not giving me what I want."

I'd like to think we got better at giving him what he wanted because we definitely got into the one-two punch of "Dancing Days" followed by "Kashmir."

For the most part, I stayed put, meaning I saw a favorite former bartender when he bumped into me, the scientist showed up in gory costume and only later when I went for a tequila refill, did I happen on man-about-town Prabir.

When he heard I'd come to get some tequila, he pointed to a nearby glass of tequila.

"I got that for Treesa, but you can take it and I'll get her another one."

First rule of bar etiquette at a show: never turn down the gift of tequila.

I returned to the front in time for "Whole Lotta Love" and "Immigrant Song" before the costume contest judging began.

And judging is a loose term because owner Rand basically left it to the band to decide.

Shots were being passed from band member to band member so they may not have been the best judges.

Like I said, it was loose. And then back to the music.

"Heartbreaker" came off seamlessly, but it took three stabs to segue into "Living Loving Maid," to great hilarity.

There were lots of guys especially singing every word.

They were just as thrilled when Zep broke from the ubiquitous "Stairway to Heaven" into AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."

Don't get me started.

"Ramble On" had the crowd whipped into a frenzy and the singer said wearily, "Alright we'll play one more song."

When they had finished, he had,too. "Alright, I'm through," he said taking off into the crowd.

But the Halloween crowd wasn't ready to stop.

An audience member jumped onstage to replace the departing singer and did vocals on "Nobody's Fault But Mine."

The singer returned for one last song, maybe to re-establish himself as the superior Robert Plant imitator.

Dancing madly, the standing cans of  PBR onstage were kicked over and went bubbling all over the stage.

Like anyone cared.

Song over, it was time to acknowledge the truth: it was no longer Halloween.

It was All Saints Day.

I don't foresee any cover band shows to celebrate that. On with my life.