Local favorites, The Wright Avenue successfully warmed up the crowd on this Saturday night at The Blind Tiger, Greensboro's long-running live music institution. The band has been gaining momentum on the regional music scene over the past few years with the help of Uncle John's Bone, a local promotion company who is busy producing events around the Triad region. With their "blues groove" sound they are poised to be the next great export out of the region that has also brought us the likes of The Mantras and BIG Something. In fact, The Mantras superb keys player, Julian Sizemore, joined the band for the entire set. There was also a special guest sit-in from PGroove's guitarist, Brock Butler, on a cover of JJ Cale's "Ride Me High".
Perpetual Groove took the stage next and was on a roll after a packed house the prior night at Asheville's "The Orange Peel". For that show they did a special "PGrunge" set featuring an all 90s grunge setlist that was co-promoted with the local Alt-Rock radio station. While that was fun and nostalgic - my favorite set that night was certainly the second where they played their unique brand of originals. Kudo's to the sound crew that night who delivered it to perfection. If any tapes exist of that night, be sure to check out the song "TTFPJ" with "Brock's Erotic Touch" sandwiched in the middle - the crowd really climaxed on that one.
On this Saturday night they opened with "Part Three" the first track off of their latest album, simply titled PERPETUAL GROOVE. I encourage everyone to give that album some listens as it has some seriously great ear candy in there. The band really stepped up their studio game on this one. They'd also give us a couple more songs from that release during this show including "Upswing" (which segued into "Digging in the Dirt", a Peter Gabriel song they've been playing occasionally for many years) and also from the new album "Spirit Bear". "Spirit Bear" has one of the coolest videos the band has ever produced.
For those, like me, who also really dig classic PGroove epic jams - they did not disappoint. This show included a 12 minute "Stealy Man", a 16 minute "Playground" and an 18 minute "Teakwood Betz"! They also included a couple more choice covers including Talking Heads "Naive Melody" and David Bowie's "Heroes". Be sure to catch them when they hit your town. I even hear that the West Coast will get some action this year - don't miss out!
Stream or download this show for free here! Thanks to Joel at JamLive.org for the audio capture!
SETLIST
1. Part Three>
2. Stealy Man
3. Upswing>
4. Digging in the Dirt
5. Playground
6. Naive Melody
7. MOTA>
8. Sunshine Underground>
9. MOTA
10. Man With All the Answers
11. Spirit Bear
12. Teakwood Betz
13. Heroes
Encore
14. Best of Anything>
15. Closer
- by Lee Crumpton
- Photos by: Jerry Friend
