Simply The Best

For the last Friday of their Horseshoe Tavern residency, cover band Dwayne Gretzky promised to play nothing but the hits drawn from their various themed shows. As usual, the place filled up early and fashionably late arrivals had to stand in line. Ben Kunder started the evening with a mix of modern country and Americana. For this gig, his band was composed of well-known locals including bassist Anna Ruddick (Ladies of the Canyon).

For the first set, it turned out that instead of mixing up the songs, Dwayne Gretzky grouped them by show. This had some mixed results. The first 5 songs to open, drawn from their Rumours (Fleetwood Mac) gig, started things on a high note especially The Chain. The middle section deflated some of the energy. Songs like Ophelia and Don't Do It from The Last Waltz (The Band) didn't quite have the same recognition. But things picked up again with "Ed Sullivan: Early Beatles". But for me, with Beatles songs being so familiar, song after song was approaching cheesy bar band territory.

The second set had more variety but they stuck to the big hits: Sledgehammer, Psycho-killer, Somebody to Love. The energy in the whole room was high and stayed up until closing time. There were a couple of firsts tonight: house lights were turned off for Dancing In The Dark; actual head-banging for Bohemian Rhapsody; though Tyler Kyte often gets quite a few lustful gazes, a girl actually stuck her head into his crotch; finally, on closing number With A Little Help (From My Friends), Kyte crowd-surfed across the crowd. Both band and audience were pumped up. At the end, Robin Hatch remarked that she had probably blown out her voice on the last few numbers.