Anticipation was high and the full moon was above, for one of the more unique Tuesdays in the series. Lloyd brought along outstanding Hammond B3 player, Louis Pain, from the Paul deLay Band, who doubled on left-hand and both feet for bass. Each Tuesday so far has improved in attendance, and this one was no different. Starting off we had about 10 people in the room, and by the end of the evening the room was pretty much filled up with about 40-50 people.

I arrived at 8:15 p.m. and Lloyd and Louis had just loaded in ahead of me. After setting up, we huddled for a few minutes about what we were going to play. Louis hadn't played with Lloyd for some years, but still had some of the old notes sheets with him, which came in handy. I opted to start at 9:15 since it's been a late crowd every Tuesday so far.

Lloyd had a few fans in the audience right from the start, and immediately most everyone was on the dancefloor. The B-3 really filled things out and after the first three or four songs, Lloyd seemed to really be enjoying himself. We stuck to shuffles and two-beats, but ventured out into a couple of zydeco-funk grooves and the trademark Lloyd Jones zydeco two-beat (both sticks on the snare with straight fours on the floor).

On break we adjusted the monitor situation by putting Louis through Lloyd's monitor, and miking Lloyd's guitar amp to feed to Louis' individual monitor, so both could hear better. It definitely made a difference in tightening us up. The room was filling in nicely. I noticed several regulars from past Tuesdays, and some new faces. I got around to most of them, and some had specifically come to see Lloyd, but others had come because they had "heard" it was happening at Hopper's on Tuesdays. That made me feel good! Lloyd himself had never been to Hopper's, but had heard about it. He's been on the road van touring in support of his latest Blind Pig Records release, Love Gotcha, and we got to play the title track, too, albeit a simplified version!

By the last set, one of Lloyd's diehard fans was buying him shots and being very insistent. I saw Lloyd down about three during the set, which loosened him up, and he was really turning loose some cool shit. With the dancefloor full and the audience gathered closely around the performance area, Lloyd really had them in the palm of his hand. He took to telling blues stories, and even threw his guitar up in the air a couple of times. Nearly everyone stayed to the glorius end around 1:15 a.m. after an encore prompted by much floor stomping and table pounding. I was really happy about how it went. Louis and I exchanged phone numbers, and I'm cooking up a possible scheme to use his talents for another project...

Afterward, the diehard with the shots was getting downright beligerent about Lloyd drinking them. Lloyd kept re-iterating he had to drive, but the man was relentless. Lloyd tactfully but firmly managed to turn him away right before I was about to step in to help poor Lloyd.

I asked Lloyd as he was heading out if he and Louis would like to do it again in July or August, and Lloyd said, "Sure, man!"

Hope to see you down at Hopper's next Tuesday night, as I rock with the surf rock of Steve Bradley!

Boyd