Yanno, New Year’s Day is a much better day since I stopped drinking.  Before, it was a day of detox.  Now, I can actually wake up at a decent hour without cursing the world.  Hooray sobriety!
Anyway, went to see Maze and Kem at the Atlanta Civic Center last night (yes, I’m in Atlanta and no, I haven’t called you yet, whoever you are).  ‘Twas what Gipp would call that fie fie delish.  It was the second time I’d seen Kem in the last four months, so it didn’t really light me up.  That’s not to say his show wasn’t good.  Just was a bit of a rerun.  The thing I always give him credit for, though, is his ability to put on a great show without really trying.  Sure, he puts effort into what he does, but he’s such an effortless performer.  It works for the dude.  And it surely works for a few of them ladies, particularly the one sitting directly in front of us that was shakin and gyratin from the second the lil fella hit the stage.
But sorry, Kem.  By the end of the night, I’d forgotten that he was even on the damn stage.
Maze was that good.  I mean incredible.   Don’t matter that Frankie came out there with that same white shirt and white pants and white hat on, the same thing I believe he wore to some talent contest in Philly in ’72.  Don’t matter that Frankie ain’t quite as smooth as he used to be.  Not a lick of that matters.  First, the band still goes hard.  High energy at every turn, tight grooves, incredible guitars, all that fun stuff.  I mean, they ripped EVERY SONG, including a great version of “Auld Lang Syne.”  Incredible.
Now, this is how you close a show.  Play “Auld Lang Syne,” do all the Happy New Year stuff, then come with…..
Golden Time of Day
The Morning After
Back in Stride Again
Happy Feelin’
Joy and Pain
Before I Let Go
You can’t beat that with a bat, pimpin’.  The wild part was that after midnight, we were sitting there trying to do the math to figure out what was left for the band to play.  I’d narrowed it down to four songs, the last of which was “Joy and Pain.”  So we start walking out when we heard the first two notes of “Before I Let Go,” which prompted me to run up the steps and almost knock my poor girlfriend to the ground.  But she kept up.  Good woman she is.
Now, don’t ask me how I forgot about “Before I Let Go,” which is so crunk that they played it at almost every party I went to in college.  I was a freshman in 1997.
Anyway, none of this really explains the best part of the show–drunk grown folks!
I mean, just because I ain’t drinkin’ don’t mean the rest of these jokers ain’t.  By the time the balloons were fallin from the ceiling, the whole room was on Cootie Brown.  I mean COOTIE.  Lady to the right of us was drinkin that bubbly straight from the bottle.  She came in chill as all get out and was droppin it like it was on fire halfway through Frankie’s set.  That lady in front of me clearly loved Kem, but not as much as she loved that fire water, which had her droppin it all the way to the floor and doin the slow circles with her hips and the whole nine.  It’s worth nothing that woman came by herself.
Then there was this couple that must have come drunk and then kept drinking.  When I say they dance all the way through Frankie’s set, I mean all the way.  First song to the last.  And they wasn’t just two-steppin, neither.  Them niggaz was cuttin’ the rug, baby.  Spinnin, dippin, woppin…everything.  The wild part, though, was that they were in perfect rhythm the whole time.  For them to be as drunk as they clearly were, that was an amazing feat.
But this was the most fun I’ve ever had at a concert.  ‘Twas New Year’s, when everyone’s just happy.  ‘Twas Frankie, who brings the house down.  And since it was New Year’s, there was enough drank to start a car.  Not just a little one, neither.  H2.  Shit like that.
Couldn’t lose.