Rabbit Potpie Face

Tonight was what you call delayed gratification with a tinge of regret.

Right after Labor Day, I'd gotten a ticket to a show at the Black Cat, anticipating seeing one of my favorite Portland bands.

Wouldn't you just know that all kinds of amazing shows had since been scheduled for tonight in Richmond?

But I gathered two fellow Helio Sequence lovers and we embarked for the nation's capital anyway.

Luck was with us when we found a parking space barely two blocks from the club.

It followed us into Bar Pilar where we were told we could be seated immediately in the last table available.

The hardest part of the evening was deciding what to eat off a menu with all kinds of appetizing offerings.

Lard-fried buttermilk chicken? Grilled sweetbreads? Duck pho?

It was a pleasure to have to work so hard at choosing.

We started with the house roasted mixed nuts, enjoying our oily fingers as much as the salt/spice blend that satisfied on so many levels.

In the interest of our arteries and the night ahead, we had roasted beets with mixed greens, walnuts, citrus and goat cheese.

Mid-bite I learned that it was one of our party's first beets.

Horrors!

That's the second time in less than a year that I've been party to someone's first beets.

Our next course was stellar: braised oxtail with mashed sweet potato, a housemade half-smoke with onions and spicy mustard and rabbit potpie.

I got the lion's share of the potpie, mainly because the potpie fanatic claimed she tasted her childhood pet rabbit in it.

She did, however, manage to abscond with a healthy share of the peas, potatoes, carrots and flaky pie crust.

Being a native Washingtonian, I am a huge fan of the half smoke, with its coarse meat and large size, and this one especially because it was housemade.

It is such a pleasure to enjoy the meat-making revival going on in my lifetime.

I was drinking a delightful Negroamaro with the meal and a corner view to a floor of a Washington eatery at 8 on a Friday night.

We certainly weren't in Richmond anymore.

Desserts were only $6 so we got three, all with housemade gelato: buttermilk pie with raspberry , chocolate torte with  pumpkin and an apple turnover the size of a doll's head (really a whole apple baked en croute) with vanilla.

Good thing the rest of the night involved standing.

Ramona Falls, another from Portlandia, was opening for Helio Sequence.

"Welcome, people of D.C. We know you're here to see Helio Sequence so we're going to pork barrel on them."

Pork barrel away, guys. I thoroughly enjoyed their mix of effects-laden violin (she looked like a young Pat Benetar and had such a violin game face) , drums, bass, guitar, keyboards and mandolin.

After the first few songs, the drummer (and, a bit surprisingly, the spokesperson for the band) shrugged and said to the crowd, "You're messing with our set list. We love your punctuality but we're caught off guard. We didn't think you'd be here yet," explaining that the list would have been different knowing people came to hear them.

It was endearing.

Songs were introduced as "a pop number" or "a tender song" and always delivered as promised.

I saw a few people singing along to every word, but most seemed, like me, to be won over tonight.

"We have two more songs before the Helio Sequence rock concert begins," the magnificently-Afro'd drummer joked. "Like most good songs, it starts with a tambourine."

I was sorry to see them go.

It was my third time seeing Helio Sequence and the last time in Charlottesville had its issues.

The sound had been terrible and guitarist/singer Brandon had not been happy about it.

But he was in fine voice and mood tonight as they played through most of "Keep Your Eyes Ahead" and some of the new "Negotiations."

"This is our second to last night of this three-month tour," Brandon said by way of hello. "It's great to see you guys."

Despite the room being much bigger and the crowd several times what it's been the last couple of times I saw them, we were near enough to the front to have great views.

Drummer Benjamin is a force of nature on the drums. Because they're a duo, there's a lot of space to fill musically, and his frenetic drumming is like watching an octopus doing it.

And he makes the most amazing drummer faces while doing it.

His synth parts came courtesy of a laptop while Brandon gave us guitars, harmonica and vocals.

As the pea-eater observed, "It's a lot of sound for two people."

But beautiful, poppy sound with a Dylan-esque bend to the vocals, psychedelic guitars and percussion to die for.

The exquisite "Lately" had people singing along when really, I would have preferred to hear the band.

But everyone's lived that lyric.

Lately, I don't think of you at all
Or wonder what you're up to or how you're getting on

I noticed the drummer from Ramona Falls standing to the side of the stage smiling and studying, apparently mesmerized by Benjamin in some parts.

Damn skippy.

Even on my third time seeing them, it's still an audio and visual treat to watch that small guy sweat out his body weight providing accents and endless cymbal crashing for an hour and a half to such an evocative voice.

By the time we rolled out onto 14th Street, I was fully gratified, but still had a tinge of regret.

I'd missed a great show in Richmond, I've no doubt.