Friday night I went to see Kermit Ruffins at Brick and Mortar. He’s a trumpet player from New Orleans, who’s hot at the moment because he’s a regular on the HBO series “Treme.” I had a ticket to see him in New Orleans at One Eyed Jacks, but missed his performance (long story, which I may have told you before). The doors opened at 8:00 p.m. and the concert began at 9:00 p.m. I was at the bar at 8:20, had one drink and was standing directly in front of the stage by 8:45. Being vertically challenged, if I don’t scope out a good spot right at the start, I can forget seeing much of anything as the night wears on. The first act was a group called “Fat Cat.” The lead singer, from Louisiana, reminded me voice-wise of an old fave of mine, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. They played all original songs – bluesy and funky. It took me back to my days of puberty. You know, when you’d lay in your room in a haze of pot smoke with the black light on staring fixated at your black light posters, listening to “Mandrake Root” by Deep Purple and thinking about moving to Cali. The next group up was The Brass Mafia, who are supposedly a New Orleans brass ensemble. They were good and funky, too, with a female trombonist.
Kermit came on around 11:30 p.m. The stage crew had already put two buckets of ice cold beers on stage for him and his band; mostly for him. He opened with “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” then went into several more New Orleans standards, including “Eiko, Eiko.” His guest singer was Noya Jones, who did an outstanding version of “At Last.” Kermit has plenty of personality. He suggested everyone buy his CD now, while he’s hot. He said that he may not be hot tomorrow, which is true; fame is fickle. Around 1:00 a.m., he sold out, in my opinion, by singing “Tonight Is Gonna’ Be A Good Night,” which is NOT his style at all. To make it worse, he invited all of the women in the audience to jump onstage and dance. You can’t imagine how horrifying it was! A bunch of drunken women with no rhythm, trying to grind up on Kermit and get their picture taken. I couldn’t take it any more. That’s when I took it upon myself to walk home. Besides, it was far too hot and stuffy in there after four and a half hours of people bumping into me and singing loudly in my ears. Yeah, I walked home from the Mission all by my lonesome after 1:00 a.m. No one bothered me at all. I got it like that!
With that, here’s Kermit: