Thundering Colossus

Slog through a little Richmond snow and ye shall be rewarded.

The show at Gallery 5 was only three blocks away, so it wasn't much of a trek anyway.

Once there, admission paid and Guggenheim Cabernet Sauvignon acquired (Me: What do you have for wine? Barkeep Pete: This red is all we got. Me: I'll take it), it was hurry up and wait time.

Despite a FB message insisting that the show would start precisely at 8:00, it didn't.

After a while, Pete spilled the beans: the bands had been given the option of playing tonight or rescheduling for tomorrow night.

They mulled it over while I sipped wine and watched snow falling, making Jackson Ward even more beautiful than usual.

Finally, a decision was made. They'd refund our money, play short sets tonight, and return tomorrow for the real show.

Wolf//Goat came shambling out first, a sextet of viola (!), keyboard/violin, guitar, tambourine, banjo and drums with four in knit caps and two hatless.

A statement on lifestyle or weather, we'll never know.

Announcing first, "We'll be having this same show here tomorrow night, same time, same intoxication,"' they set off into ramshackle freak folk territory for the thirty-some people in the room.

Surprisingly, given the weather, one of those people in the room had on a tank top (with black leather gloves) and another had on cutoff shorts with boots.

Not judging, just observing.

Before long, a group of guys in the front row had put their arms on each other's shoulders and were doing a modified kicking chorus line, perhaps the better to show their appreciation for the band's sound.

And judging by the reaction of some in the crowd, I'm guessing many people were hearing their first band with viola and banjo tonight.

I was reminded of the Devil Makes Three show last week where so many in the room clearly were having their first moment with punk folk and being overcome with something completely new.

After their short set, the lead singer said, "Thanks to everyone who walked or ran here in the snow. We love you."

Aww, shucks.

During the beak I returned to the bar for more vino while a guy next to me got beer.

Taking a sip, he grimaced, turned to me and said, "I forgot how bad Genesee is."

But it's cheap, right? "Yea, cheap," he said with disgust,, clinking his can with my plastic cup.

It always take Zac Hryciak and the Junglebeat forever to set up and tonight was no exception.

The subject had come up during Wolf//Goat' set that the poster for tonight's show had a snowman on it and perhaps that was what had brought the bad weather.

Zac immediately copped to being the snowman's perpetrator.

The Junglebeat's first song had all kinds of reverb on it, making it very un-Juinglebeat like, but that was corrected immediately afterwards.

Mid-song, keyboardist/violinist Jessica said, "Zac didn't tell you this song is about Mia Kunis," to which Zac quipped, "It's about my masculinity."

At the end of the song, Zac inquired of a friend in the audience how it sounded. "Confused or scared?"

Now there's a game we could play all night.

Before playing "Colossus," Zac tuned, acknowledging, "I don't have any jokes."

Luckily the tiny tambourinist from Wolf//Goat did and came back onstage to share a pig/duck joke beautifully.

Jessica asked if we wanted to hear a Christmas song since it was snowing and the sentimental crowd voted yes.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" benefited from a typical punched up drum beat that made it a memorable moment as snow continued to fall outside the thick, velvet curtains of Gallery 5.

Inexplicably, the same guys who'd been moved to dance and kick during Wolf//Goat took up their line even more drunkenly during Junglebeat's set, obliviously knocking into tables and other attendees with huge grins on their faces.

Clearly they were feeling it.

Junglebeat finished and the crowd headed out into the night where the snow was still falling, now made even more epic because of the rolling thunder behind it.

Or maybe that's just my twisted idea of yet another of tonight's rewards.