My wife the groupie..?
Last night (Saturday, 24 November), we finally saw an opening band that the missus liked more than the headliner: The Infatuations, a funk / soul / rock band from the Detroit area that sounds like they've been together for years owing to their tight vocal harmonies and outstanding musicianship. They were the second opening act for the Howling Diablos; she actually preferred The Infatuations' to the Diablos' set. (More typically, she absolutely loathed the first opening act, Names Unlisted; I liked four or five of their songs, but they've got a ways to go before they're truly professional.)
The missus has discovered that she hates The Infatuations' two previous co-lead vocalists, Maureen Honoré (I don't think there's any black female vocalist that my wife likes; then again, I haven't exposed her to Joan Armatrading or Miriam Makeba yet) and Marco Lowe (who is one of the band's co-founders, but now plays a behind-the-scenes role as a songwriter and producer), thanks to various sites offering streaming audio of their previously recorded tracks; she loves the current lead vocalist, Caleb Gutierrez.
The missus is an extremely harsh music critic, owing to her years of vocal training as a teenager: she turned down a full-ride music scholarship to the University of Michigan, and has performed professionally as a back-up vocalist for the likes of Barry Manilow (who was something of a douche, according to her; not only did he refuse to eat with his back-ups, he ordered them to not even look at him), Paul Anka, and Huey Lewis and the News (she jammed with the latter after the gig that she played with them; she said that Huey was "a great guy"); much to my annoyance, she has a pretty narrow musical taste, and virtually no interest in broadening her musical horizons. For her to so completely and enthusiastically endorse a band that I also actually like -- she doesn't even like the Howling Diablos that much; she didn't like the Hell Drivers or the (sadly, briefly) revived Rockets that much either, when push came to shove (the Hell Drivers were the test band of the revived Rockets, and we managed to attend a goodly number of their shows, as well as the revived Rockets' only headliner show, at the Filmore in Detroit, in November 2010) -- is roughly akin to the Great Pumpkin inviting Linus from Peanuts over for hot cocoa.
But The Infatuations had her with their opening number ("Box of Shells"). She's going to have to wait for a new album of theirs, though, given that she can't stand their previous co-lead vocalists. (Gutierrez only joined the band in late 2010.)
I suppose it's a good thing that she's not more comfortable with her current vocal abilities (her multiple surgeries have resulted in her larynx being ruptured twice by an NG tube) or appearance; if she were, I suspect that she would've chatted up the band, and possibly gone off with them, which would've meant that I wouldn't see hide nor hair of her until next Tuesday. I've never seen her so absorbed through any band's entire set.
At minimum, I suppose that a future Infatuations gig is one show that I won't have to arm-twist or cajole her into seeing; but I should probably think twice if she starts practicing anything other than the Christmas songs she's supposed to perform at the senior living center that she volunteers at.
The missus has discovered that she hates The Infatuations' two previous co-lead vocalists, Maureen Honoré (I don't think there's any black female vocalist that my wife likes; then again, I haven't exposed her to Joan Armatrading or Miriam Makeba yet) and Marco Lowe (who is one of the band's co-founders, but now plays a behind-the-scenes role as a songwriter and producer), thanks to various sites offering streaming audio of their previously recorded tracks; she loves the current lead vocalist, Caleb Gutierrez.
The missus is an extremely harsh music critic, owing to her years of vocal training as a teenager: she turned down a full-ride music scholarship to the University of Michigan, and has performed professionally as a back-up vocalist for the likes of Barry Manilow (who was something of a douche, according to her; not only did he refuse to eat with his back-ups, he ordered them to not even look at him), Paul Anka, and Huey Lewis and the News (she jammed with the latter after the gig that she played with them; she said that Huey was "a great guy"); much to my annoyance, she has a pretty narrow musical taste, and virtually no interest in broadening her musical horizons. For her to so completely and enthusiastically endorse a band that I also actually like -- she doesn't even like the Howling Diablos that much; she didn't like the Hell Drivers or the (sadly, briefly) revived Rockets that much either, when push came to shove (the Hell Drivers were the test band of the revived Rockets, and we managed to attend a goodly number of their shows, as well as the revived Rockets' only headliner show, at the Filmore in Detroit, in November 2010) -- is roughly akin to the Great Pumpkin inviting Linus from Peanuts over for hot cocoa.
But The Infatuations had her with their opening number ("Box of Shells"). She's going to have to wait for a new album of theirs, though, given that she can't stand their previous co-lead vocalists. (Gutierrez only joined the band in late 2010.)
I suppose it's a good thing that she's not more comfortable with her current vocal abilities (her multiple surgeries have resulted in her larynx being ruptured twice by an NG tube) or appearance; if she were, I suspect that she would've chatted up the band, and possibly gone off with them, which would've meant that I wouldn't see hide nor hair of her until next Tuesday. I've never seen her so absorbed through any band's entire set.
At minimum, I suppose that a future Infatuations gig is one show that I won't have to arm-twist or cajole her into seeing; but I should probably think twice if she starts practicing anything other than the Christmas songs she's supposed to perform at the senior living center that she volunteers at.