The Fleshtones Tear a Hole in the Cosmic Fabric
The Fleshtones
w/The Woolly Bushmen, and The Empyres
May 3, @ Will’s Pub, Orlando, Florida
Look here, Pilgrim, I wasn’t real clear on what I was seeing at first either. And I can’t blame you for being skeptical. But this here was what you can rightly call one of them seismic EE-vents.
No foolin’.
Will’s looks like any other nondescript sort of place you wouldn’t waste time descriptin’ no how. So how a rip in the cosmic fabric came about here, on a Sunday night, well, we may never know.
From Orlando came The Empyres who capably and believably performed, with above average rock moves that’d make any normal person wanna get up off-a that thing. Good solid dance floor grind for good-hearted folks like yourselves.
Now Pilgrim, also from Orlando came The Woolly Bushmen with a more developed sense of self than we’ve seen from this trio before. Augmented on saxophone by Jim Ivy for several numbers, the band was agile and animated at this the debut party for their excellent sophomore full length release, “Sky Bosses” (more on this later). Well received and doing it to death, this was proving to be a night not for the faint of heart.
Now as I’ve said, this was a few days ago, and in this day and age of digital instant everything on demand, I have had trouble processing what it was I saw with these two eyes of my own, which are usually reliable.
The Fleshtones have been around for a while. And you can take an artist for granted when they refuse to go away. But friends, I needs to let you know, this was the real deal. The Fleshtones took the stage with the sort of commitment and determination of British forces taking the Pegasus Bridge and Hemingway liberating a nearby bar. This weren’t no sight for the squeamish.
One manic, frantic song after another, this four piece, fronted by the buoyant Peter Zeremba, were as overblown and out of control as triple A powered toy plugged into a nuclear reactor. Big tent revival preachers wish they had something on these guys. The makers of Red Bull secretly want to harvest their collective DNA for exploitative reasons. This friends is the sort of energy we few hundred were witness to. When the stage became too confining, guitarist Keith Streng jumped into the audience, or climbed onto the PA stacks. 70 minutes later, the set ended, which can only be one-upped by a 25 minutes encore, which a-course they did.
Pilgrim, so that you now understand why you stirred so uneasily from your slumber on Sunday night, and had trouble getting back to sleep, it’s because the Earth moved. And planets aligned. And The Fleshtones did what they always do, only better. ‘Cuz I was there and you have to read about. Next time, and there will be a next time; don’t be the one who misses out.
