Opening Acts

The Forty Acres Fest is an annual student organized event at the University of Texas. The fest is an all day event that features food, games, prizes, and live music. When I was a student, the fest featured acts such as Rob Bass and DJ EZ Rock, Tone Loc, Young MC, and The Roots. In recent years, Ludacris and Common have headlined the fest. So when I heard that my beloved University was bringing Little Richard to town, I had to go! I was just telling my sister that we are beginning to loose our legends, and it would be nice to see some of them perform. Well I can now say that I have seen a living legend perform. As I mentioned in my previous post Little Richard is the originator, often imitated, never duplicated. He however, deserves his own post, and I will get to that once my friend forwards the pics to me.

What I wanted to focus on today were the opening acts. Now I have to remember that this was a student led event, but it seems that they could have really done better. Austin is nicknamed the live music capitol of the world, and there are so very talented musicians here. However, the bands chose to open for Little Richard did not fit that description. First up was Kevin Jack. Well, I will excuse the selection of Kevin Jack because apparently, he won the campus battle of the bands, and that secured him a spot in last nights show. Now Kevin Jack is a rapper, and he was backed by a live band. The problem is, it seems that he assembled his band at the last minute. They took forever to warm up, because most of that time they were on stage bumping their gums. And when the sound engineer asked someone to do a vocal mic check, they all stood their looking at each other with these dumb blank expressions on their faces…Wow. The back up singer stepped to the mic and begin singing “Ooh, la, la, la”…wow, she’s tone deaf. Not a good look. The sound engineer finally stepped up to the vocal mics and said “Mic check, 1-2-1-2, that’s all they had to do to begin with. *smh* Completely unprofessional! My first thought was “And you wonder why know one wants to fool with us”. Well, my allergies begin to give me fits, and I left the concert area to go to the Texas Union to get some water so I could take my allergy pill. When I got back, Kevin Jack was rapping up…yes!

Now, the next act were a group of men who call themselves the Jungle Rockers. Yeah, I don’t quite get it myself. All of their songs sound the same…If you’ve watched the movie “Grease” just think of the “Grease Lightening” song...not too mention the members of the band looked like T-Bird rejects. Yeah, I was in the audience singing the lyrics to “Grease Lightening” to all of their songs. There were three opening acts, and since the show did not start on time, they were each allowed three songs. Well, the T-Birds sang four, well actually, one of them was a maraca solo. I don’t know…but when the lead greaser leaned into the mic to start the lyrics of song number 5, his mic was cut off, the stage lights were turned off, and funk music started blaring from the speakers. The crowd roared, the drummer threw his sticks down, the bass player kept on strumming, and the lead vocalist…well we saw his mouth moving, but to our satisfaction, nothing was coming out. LOL! Thus far, this was the highlight of the night. They finally exited stage left and next up was local Austin blues man, Black Joe Lewis.

Now, I have never heard of Mr. Black Joe, but he looked off to me from jump. He was wearing this dashiki, and the rest of his band looked as though they were auditioning to appear on the blues brothers. Well, my initial opinion of Mr. Black Joe Lewis was right. This man is not right! He steps to the mic, and the first thing out of his mouth was BITCH! Yes, he said it like I typed it. Everyone in the audience were looking around at each other like WTH! Then he proceeds with “You’re always talking that shit…”. I honestly could not understand most of the words coming out of his mouth. But I could understand the last line of his opening number…”I’ma beat yo ass when I get home”. *smh* I can’t take it! Then in his second song, he was asking a woman “Why don’t you call me…”. Umm, maybe because you called her a bitch, and threatened to beat her ass. Ummm, I don’t know…So before he closes he dedicates his final number to all the fine Texas women with big ol’ booty’s, because you know that Texas women are the ones with the big ol’ booty’s. *smh*…Yeah, I did a lot of head shaking last night. At this point, Little Richard appears in one of the windows of the main building, we just see an image in white, and someone zooms in with their camera…yes its Little Richard! At this point, cameras go up, trying to zoom in a snap a picture of the originator. You know that ‘s sad, when we rather try to make out Little Richard in a window far away, then listen to Black Joe Lewis…but let me get back to Mr. Black Joe Lewis. Well, the number he dedicated to us Texas women with the big ol booty’s…started with PLEASE! Mann, I thought he was about to cover James Brown, oh well, so much for a hoping to hear a real song. He proceeds to sing “I want some of that bush in dem jeans”. Yeah, you read that right. *smh*. Again, I could not understand most of what Mr. Joe Black Lewis is saying, but I did make out him begging…”I would do anything to have you, get on my knees, walk like a dog, eat dog food…”. Yes, this fool said he would eat dog food. I’m done!

Yes, this was a hot mess! But don’t fret, seeing Little Richard made it all worth the while. I will post about his performance shortly.

Oh, and I had a conversation with one of his brothers after the show that was interesting. The audience consisted mostly of young white students. There were a few black faces sprinkled through out the crowd, and you had your older members who actually are from Little Richard’s time. Well, his brothers were handing out souvenir books that are actually Christian devotional booklets that contained an autographed picture of Little Richard. FYI, Little Richard is an ordained Minister . As they handed out the books, they thanked everyone for coming out. I got separated from my sister and my friend, so I stood over to the side (thinking they would have to pass me) as they handed out books. His brother handed me a book, then gave me another for a friend. He asked me if I was a longhorn. “Yes” I answer. Well, noticing the demographics of the show he asks “Is there many black longhorns?”. Well, I tell him that in relation to the majority population no, but we exist, and when I was on campus we were the largest minority population. He then proceeds to ask me “Where do the black students in Texas choose to go?”. I told him that TX and TX A&M, are the two institutions that most students within the state of Texas choose to attend. But I did note that Prairie View and Texas Southern are the largest HBCU’s in TX, which he already knew. We also started talking about Rice University, and we got on the subject of Jenna Bush attending UT, and Jeb’s son graduating from the UT college of Law. He then gave me two more books, and told me to remember to always keep God first. They all seem to be very down to earth. Little Richard included, but I will get to that later.