Sunday, April 8, 2018

A GREAT NIGHT IN JERSEY CITY

So Friday night I took part in my cousin Nicholas Ciavatta's "50th Birthday Bash" by reading a few poems on stage, with my youngest son, Flynn, playing drums and my oldest, Miles, bass (other people's instruments from other bands). It was a night to remember.
[photo by Beth Bentley—I told them I needed a bright light to read but obviously I'm too pale for light that bright to work in photos, in this case making me actually "white" (instead of the pink I mostly am)]

Lots of great musicians and singers, starting with Keith Kenny's solo opening exactly at 8PM filling the vast venue, with ceilings two stories high, so sonically full, it was like his guitar and cymbal set up were manned by ten musicians instead of one, and his singing overrode those sounds with passion and power.
I'm not gonna review each act, I'll just say I arrived around 7PM and left at 1AM and didn't even feel tired, just energized and happy. Everyone was good (see names above).

The biggest highlights for me were rapper Just Putt, whose flow was like surfing an extended wave, and my cousin Nicholas Ciavatta on guitar singing and fronting his Sea Of Otters band, with another cousin, Pat Lally, also on guitar, and Malcolm Marsden on guitar as well, all of them shredding (I don't know the sax and trumpet player and drummer and others in the band's names, sorry)....

...and Sylvana Joyce, a favorite of mine since I first saw her perform and posted about her and what I saw as her Gypsy/punk/Broadway mashup originality, (at this event someone called her music "Broadway metal!"), I'm turning 76 soon and have seen many many music acts live since I was a boy, and Sylvana is one of the most enormously talented, from her singing to her keyboard work to her composing and lyrics, but also one of the most powerful performing presences I've ever seen on stage live (and as I said later, her band "The Moment" was as tight as James Brown's bands)...

...and the biggest surprise for me, the last band, Plastiq Passion, whose set was so energetically punk yet explosively upbeat, even giddy, it closed the night as though it were just starting...

One of the best parts of the night for me (after the thrill of my two sons backing me) was seeing so many members of my clan there. Unfortunately most were gone by the time Ellen Merkenstein took this photo at closing. That's my cousin Nicholas Ciavatta (son of my first cousin the late Rosemary Lally Ciavatta) my son Flynn, me in my poet outfit (the tie has either weeping or bleeding books on it), my daughter Caitlin, my cousin Pat (son of my late first cousin Jackie Lally), and Nick's bother, my cousin Chris Ciavatta...

Thanks to all who're there, especially the performers...

[PS: Hopefully more images and video will come soon]

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