R.L. Burnside gets the crowd tapping

What began as a mellow, sit-down affair Wednesday night at the 'Sco turned into a full-fledged blues fest by the time the night was over. Master of his genre R.L. Burnside hypnotized the packed club into swaying along to his every chord change for nearly an hour-and-a-half.

While the artist himself remained pleasant and calm in his chair on-stage, the crowd in attendance couldn't get enough of those old-time blues and complimented the 70-year-old man with thunderous applause after each number. When the show finally did come to an end, though, the audience was assured that their $3 cover charge went further than any indie-rock show.

Burnside has the experience of several decades under his belt. And it shows. The guitarist was as gentle with his audience as he was with his guitar, but the smooth handling of the two provided for a truly satisfying evening of music.

While Burnside failed to introduce his songs, their individual titles did not really matter. The overall performance was what stuck the crowd in the gizzard: he soothed their ears with thick, rich chords against his surprisingly strong voice, rolling from one classic melody to the next without flaw or fault. The man is a master; he wasn't too arrogant to show off, but knew his strengths and uses them to full advantage, pushing the heads and hips of his on-lookers until they couldn't sit still. There were times throughout the evening, during Burnside's faster rock-blues numbers, in which not a soul in the 'Sco was standing still.

Though Burnside's talent became obvious after just a few moments of his guitar work, perhaps he took his audience by surprise. Most of the crowd had initially pulled up chairs a safe distance from the stage in anticipation of a slow, easy-drinking evening of low-key musicalities. This was all in vain, however, once the evening of blues actually started.

The steady, standard blues patterns of second guitarist Kenny Brown led off the music, supported shortly there-after by Cedric Burnside's (R.L.'s grandson) simple, efficient drumming, setting a casual fast pace for the opener. But once the master added his touch of patterns to the work in progress a few measures later, the audience was hooked. Nearly everyone rose to their feet and quickly crowded close to the stage to get a peek.

It was like any other high-energy rock show at the 'Sco, but this was different: this was the blues. The audience came to understand Burnside's sincerity when he announced, "Y'all ready for the blues?" before the start of the set. He knew exactly what he was doing, and they fell for it, happily.

Each number seemed to get better than the last, though none was especially different than the rest. Burnside alternated between accompanied fast, rockish-blues numbers; slower, traditional style classics with minimal guitar changes; high, twangy blue grass and classic, down-home Mississippi cries reminiscent of old-time standards. But whatever his take on the blues that night, Burnside was pleasant, steady and almost effortless in playing. He made it all look so much easier than it probably is. Here, at the 'Sco, sat a 70-year-old, belting out the blues from the deepest chambers of his gut to a bunch of college students.

Nevertheless, the students were polite. And so were the fourth meal workers lured into the show (like so many others) from across the hall, swaying in the back drop. And so were the members of the opening band, Cheater Slicks, perched on-stage tapping their feet to their headliner's songs. In fact, throughout the entire set, Burnside was treated by everyone with grandfatherly respect, appropriately filling the charisma he possessed.

Almost like two gentle bodyguards, Brown and Burnside's grandson took care of everything from handing him the appropriate guitar, to making sure his feed-back sounded good, to ordering him a Rolling Rock mid-set. "I'm gonna try to push this rock over the hill," he said as he took a swig of the drink before swinging back into the blues again. And he was back with a flash, stronger than ever, with an almost full-rock effort and fast-paced patterns, driving the crowd wild. During the song, Burnside broke his own spotlight twice for colorful drum solos, after which he praised with his characteristic calls of "Well, well, well!" and smiling approval.

Though the evening got off to a somewhat average start with the Cheater Slicks and their hybrid garage-ish-squeals and blues-rock-in-training, they made Burnside's set all the more welcome. Not that the Cheater Slicks were bad, just slightly out of place for the blues-starved 'Sco-goers. The band had little audience interaction; they played a continuous stream of half-efforts toward sloppy '60s tunage and happily drunken-sounding three-chorders between their own respective swigs of Rolling Rock. However, all was forgiven when Burnside took over, making the rainy evening all the more warm, pulsating the 'Sco's walls warm with sexy blues and the presence of a true great.

Well, well, well.... Thank you very much....:Burnside got the laid back crowd up and swaying with his old time style. (photo by Mike Kabakoff)