Bailey Singletary is a junior majoring in communication. She can be contacted at [email protected].This past weekend, I and many other students attended Bulldog Bash in the Cotton District. While I went to the “main concerts” that the event provided, I felt that the smaller local bands shined more brightly than expected. Maybe this is because I always like to support anything local and I’m not a fan of the bigger names that came, but I still stand by my decision.
I momentarily attended Eric Church long enough to hear a rendition of Queen’s “Fat Bottom Girls,” and I do think he is a very talented performer. In fact, nothing was wrong with his performance at all. I didn’t get to see or hear Bobby Valentino or any of the other main stage performances, so I cannot comment on them. But thankfully, I did get to see Jamie Davis and Soul Gravy and Kitchen Blues Band.
I feel like even though they weren’t one of the spotlighted groups that were invited to play, their performance was one of the best. Two of the band members, Jamie Davis and Dan Isbell, agreed that this was one of their best turnouts to a show, and, as always, they had a lot of fun doing what they love to do.
It always seems that the saying “great things come in small packages” is especially true when it comes to entertainment in Starkville, because you never expect a sound like theirs to come from a five-member band. Soul Gravy didn’t have a big, flashy, Vegas-like show to attract people to stop and listen. Instead, they simply played music in such a spectacular way it became addictive to the point that people didn’t want to keep walking past the stage while they were playing.
With some well-known songs such as “California Love” and “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” and some self-written songs such as “Mississippi Moonshine,” these guys really know what it means to entertain people who simply enjoy good music.
If what Soul Gravy plays isn’t music that you enjoy listening to, you probably enjoyed Kitchen Blues Band if you were lucky enough to catch them. With their mix of Eric Clapton songs, a rendition of “All Along the Watchtower” and other amazing rock and blues, there’s no way someone musically intelligent couldn’t enjoy what they have to offer. Another great thing about Kitchen Blues is its drive to stay around the Starkville area.
“We always enjoy playing at the local bars, but it’s great to be able to play for something like Bulldog Bash because people who don’t go to the bars get to come and listen,” Kitchen Blues Band drummer Christopher Polk said.
It’s almost hard to imagine that this three-member band, with an occasional special guest, isn’t playing shows in a city like New Orleans for thousands of people on a regular basis.
It’s refreshing to see a university set up stages to help support local bands that deserve it. While Jamie Davis and Soul Gravy and Kitchen Blues Band aren’t the only two bands that performed well this past weekend, they were the two who seemed to stick out in my mind and fit my preference for what I enjoy listening to.
Like I stated earlier, I always enjoy local support, whether it’s a band or a restaurant, so whenever Starkville and MSU come together for something, it’s always nice, even if half the crowd ended up in Bad Dawgs on Tuesday.