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On July 31st, 2007 m’lady and I pulled into Orillia, Ontario for a pair of Allman Brothers concerts at the local casino, called Rama.
Ah, but this was no regular, ordinary show day, for every year on July 31st we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of m’lady, and a grand celebration it usually turns out to be. Back then we were still in the early stages of our relationship and I was just getting my gift-giving sea-legs; this time my present to her was a Texas mickey of Jack Daniels with a small chaser bottle of tequila. Pretty classy, huh? I forget how much of it we got into before the show but it could have been as much as we wanted given that we stayed at the Motel 6 directly across the street from the casino (again, classy) so we didn’t have to do any driving to get to and from the venue.
That said, I think we still had our wits very much about us when we strolled over to catch the show. I don’t think I even stopped to gamble, though we did find time to meet and become friends with a nice American couple somewhere along the way.
We were on the floor which may or may not have been devoid of seating. I recall thinking the whole setup was pretty ghetto, standing on the cement floor with a makeshift stage in front of me and squinting back towards the seating it looked like they had simply set up a bunch of bleachers for the seated folk*. Not the casino-style arena/theatre that I was expecting. I guess from the proprietors perspective the carpets and comfy chairs are not the reason people come to Casino Rama.
And as soon as the band started it occurred to me that the carpets and comfy chairs aren’t the main draw for me either.
This was back when Gregg Allman was still relatively healthy, and when he was healthy he had no trouble whatsoever in proving that he was pretty much the best blues singer alive. Listen to him belt out a song like It’s Not My Cross to Bear or Good Morning, School Girl (both of which came early in this set) and tell me I’m wrong. Then Statesboro Blues, The Sky is Crying, and Midnight Rider…go ahead and deny that Gregg’s insurmountable vocal power isn’t drenched in a brutal, heartfelt, anguish that distills the most authentic and attractive timbre of joyous pain and redemption in the business.
I dare you.
And the rest of the band ain’t no slouches neither. Derek and Warren going head to head on Jessica (the set closer of the evening) is all you need to hear about that, and oh, the rhythm section! Three drummers jostled together underneath the brilliance of Oteil Burbridge’s bass flutters and created a buzzy, lofty foundation that permeated the whole evening and kept Gregg and the guitarists sounding like stars.
The band encored with One Way Out and then out we went. We lingered long enough at the casino to make dinner plans with our new friends but with that Texas mickey calling us from just across the street and a second night of the Allmans still ahead of us I don’t think we stayed at the casino very long.
Which is exactly what the casino people hoped wouldn’t happen, making us solid winners over the course of the evening.
*A few years later I attended a Steve Martin/Martin Short show in the same room and discovered that I had been mistaken about the seating. Once I was up there in the “bleachers” I could see that the cushioned seats were actually fairly comfy and seemed quite permanently installed after all. From up there it actually felt like a half-decent casino concert venue.
Todd Man Out 