Trombone Shorty
The Fillmore
San Francisco, CA
December 31, 2012
Trombone Shorty: Knows How to
Partay
It’s been a while since I partayed hot and heavy on a New Year’s Eve. When you’re a little rusty, it’s good to
surround yourself with professionals. And
the crew that journeyed to the Fillmore with me last night were veterans. They know how to get the job done, glowsticks
and all. And the Master of Ceremonies, Trombone Shorty, made sure the job was
done well. Of course, the audience was
more than ready to celebrate but TS brought the goods. A very impressive performance for someone who is still only 26 years old.
Much of the NYE prelims involved discussions regarding
transportation logistics - which eventually consisted of two trains and a bus - to get to the
Lower Haight where the evening started with some tasty but greasy naan and
curry at Indian Oven before a mad scramble to the magic bus that
would take us to the show. When we
arrived, Papa Mali was midway through a set of psychedelic hardrock blues, a la
Iron Butterfly or Deep Purple. I felt
transported back to the 1960s Fillmore though just about 4
decades after the wave had crashed. But
it was good enough to keep the night on track.
TS took the stage for an hour long set of high energy jams before an
intermission. It was all great fun but I
was not anticipating the break. In
retrospect, it seems obvious that they needed time to prepare for the midnight
hour. About 5 minutes before midnight, a
small mardi gras parade with TS blowing on his trombone passed though the
middle of the crowd to the stage where they counted down to midnight and
dropped hundreds of balloons on the excited crowd. The pros and myself were directly under the drop
and were drenched with a downpour of rainbow colored balloons. TS played a medley of James Brown licks during “Feel Like Funkin it Up” which followed Auld Lang Syne after midnight. And also included a fun cover of the Isley Brother’s “Shout” which completed the party.
Trombone Shorty has appeared
before on MV&R when I characterized
him as kind of a New Orleans jazzy rocking jam band. That still holds true except he was even more
fun last night. The evening had all the
makings of a Good Time and TS delivered.
Final Vid tipped from Youtube rb1229.
Trombone Shorty
