Meet Share_A_Smile
He’s been a member of The Boogie Board since September 2006, but you may not recognize him. In two-and-a-half years he has banked just over 2500 posts, but that’s because he is very particular with his words. When he posts a comment, you can bet he has put plenty of thought behind it. He is a raging Taylor fan and is slowly indoctrinating his wife.
BUT – until recently he had never seen Taylor live and in person. Luckily, he was able to attend the Oakley Ohio Shadow Date at the 20th Century Theatre. SAS posted an amazing recap of the evening and it was so well received that several people requested it be posted here as well, so without further adieu, here is my friend Share_A_Smile’s fantastic recap! 
Share_A_Smile & Family’s First Live Taylor Hicks Experience
01-24-2009 Oakley, Ohio 10:00PM
I have been very ill the past week, actually missing 3 of the 5 days of the workweek preceding this show, so I wasn’t 100% sure that we would make it to this show either until about 2:00PM the day of the show. But man am I glad we were able to go as it surpassed all of my expectations and even now as I have had a full day after to reflect on all that took place I can only rate it as a perfect show. Taylor sounded great. He was in perfect voice and he was spot on. He is obviously taking good care of his voice because of his Grease gig and not being on his solo tour now, his voice is not blown out. He seemed in an extremely good mood and happy to be there and he really seemed to be having as much fun himself as we were watching him.
OK, let me get organized here, then I will try to give you some more details on the show itself, the set list (from the notes I took during the show), and the band since I went out on a limb right off and called it a “perfect show.” Let’s see if I can back that up. I think I can. But I think for now I need to give a few things leading up to the show so you can really see how well it worked out for us in our first TH experience, and the best place to start is probably the beginning.
We arrived in Oakley at the theater at about 8:00PM for the 10:00PM show. We knew the doors didn’t open until 9:00PM. There was already a pretty good line waiting outside, but we decided to get something to eat before the show. We scoped out the parking situation and it looked bleak, but we decided to chance it that we could find something when we got back and go eat. Plus, it was pretty cold out so we really didn’t want to wait in line for an hour in less than 20 degree weather. I was sick and we had our five-year-old grandson with us. When we returned to the theater at about 8:45pm we parked in the last spot on the street directly across the street from the theater, SCORE. The line outside was much longer by this time so we walked to the end of the line and took our place in line. A few seconds later a couple walked up behind us and we began chatting with them. They had just driven 8 hours from Buffalo, NY. I make that same drive myself quite often for my job when I go up to St. Catherine’s in Canada, but tonight we had only driven maybe 30 miles from our home just north of Cincinnati. They were a nice couple and I really enjoyed speaking with them. At about 9:02 or :03 they opened the doors and we began filing in, fairly quickly.
Even though we were fairly far back in the line, once we were inside we walked right down to the stage to see how close we could get. In no time, we found our seats for the night. 3rd Row Center Left, SWEET! If I could have reserved any seats in the house, that’s the ones I would have picked and this was General Admission. Do you see where I’m going with the “perfect show”, yet? Well it only gets better from here.
OK, we had our (GREAT!!!) seats and it wasn’t long before my wife had to check out the place (she’s not much for sitting still and doing nothing) so she offered to go get us something to drink and she and the grandson took off. When we sat down I noticed there were yellow flyers on most of the seats and picked one up. It was a flyer for The Kevin Fox Band, the warm-up act. I thought that was weird because there was no mention of the main event. The back was blank so I started making ready to do a set list for Taylor. The lady who was sitting next to where my wife would be sitting saw what I was doing and she asked me if I posted on-line. No one in public has ever asked me that before, but of course I knew exactly what she was talking about and said yes. She asked on what board? Of course I said The Boogie. She asked my screen name and I said Share_A_Smile and she said I’m MK. That was cool I had finally met someone from The Boogie, in person. FlowersKY was right next to MK and I met her, too. I’ve read a lot of people’s experiences of meeting other Boogie members at events, but it really is cool when it happens. I began looking around and the place was really filling up. It was gonna be a pretty big crowd, maybe not a sellout, but full for the way they had it setup. Chairs in the front and tables toward the back. For max capacity I believe they go with more chairs and no or fewer tables. From what I could tell from up front, (did I mention we had great seats?), it was pretty full and a great crowd. Lots and lots of couples, I didn’t feel out of place at all; in fact I felt like I knew or knew of most everybody there even though I really didn’t know anybody.
This is getting way too long, so I will attempt a short description of my take on the warm-up act and then end part one with my set list.
The warm-up act was pretty good. From what I understand, Taylor always strives to introduce us to the best local talent he can whenever he can because he remembers his roots and all the appreciation he has for artists that did the same for him when he was just starting out and struggling to make his career. Kevin Fox was no exception. He was very good and obviously a Taylor fan to boot. He was billed as The Kevin Fox Band even though it was just him on stage. He had one of those foot pedal boxes where he could play syncopated rhythm guitar riffs for a full stanza then capture what he was playing, put it in a loop and play it back. Then he would play lead guitar over the recording and it was like two guitars playing together. He did this on 3 or 4 of the ten or more songs he did. Like I said he was really good, a good singer, funny, and a very good entertainer. He must have thanked Taylor for the opportunity 4 or 5 times at least and you could tell he was really sincere and a Taylor fan. He even said a line from one of his songs was inspired by Taylor’s first Leno appearance post idol when Taylor said what he was going to do now that he was famous was buy a new couch and Kevin pointed that out in a story he told before he did the song. Of course the crowd ate that up.
Set List – Taylor Hicks 01-24-2009 Oakley, OH 20th Century Theatre
1. Soul Thing
2. Heaven Knows
3. The Maze
4. Heart And Soul
5. Compared To What
6. Hide Nor Hair
7. The Deal
8. Woman’s Got To Have It
9. Gonna Move
10. Lowdown
11. What’s Right Is Right
12. Runaround
13. Baby Please Don’t Go (Band Personnel Introductions & Good Night)
Encore: Badge
Share_A_Smile & Family’s First Live Taylor Hicks Experience – Part 2: The Show
OK, on with The Show – After a very brief intermission (10 – 15 minutes, maybe) Josh and Brian had come out and made their final sound checks. Then the entire band minus Taylor was finally on stage getting situated and giving hand signals to the sound guy in back when they played a certain note or chord that they didn’t like how it sounded. Then they began to play some little ditty together (Soul Finger?) that was obviously just a tease until Taylor came out. Everybody is looking around to see where he is gonna come in from. Then he makes his entrance, body guards in tow, and goes right up on stage and welcomes everybody and thanks us for inviting him and then says we’ll start things off with an old soul tune. Then the band starts playing for real. It sounds familiar, but I’m not sure what song it is. Then Taylor starts singing and I recognize the lyrics, but I still don’t know what song it is. Then it hit me. This is Soul Thing and the reason I didn’t recognize it was because I had never heard it before. This was Taylor Hicks LIVE Soul Thing! The guys were still making hand gestures to each other and to the sound guy, but I’m not sure why. It sounded pretty frickin great. What ever problems they were having or were dealing with got all straightened out before they each took their first solo. Josh and Brian were right in front of me and they sounded great together. Taylor’s vocals were clear as could be, you could make out every word he sang. The sound seemed to be mixed perfectly. I had heard so many people claim that the music was so loud that it drowned Taylor out. I didn’t feel that at all. I thought he sounded great. He was in a zone. Even if he didn’t sing a lyric exactly right, he did sing what he meant to sing at the time, so it was cool. We believed it because we believed he believed it (if that makes since).
Taylor seemed to be having a little problem with the teleprompter (there were 3, one on each side of Taylor’s mic stand and one over near Josh’s mic stand) after he finished Soul Thing he was acting like he couldn’t remember the name of the next song or what it was he wanted to say about it or something (he was signaling somebody about the prompter), he said “it’s from the TH album and uh, uh well, you guys will figure it out … it’s called Heaven Knows … and they proceed to rip that song to shreds. Again, I realize this is the best version of this song I have ever heard him do. The Maze was equally strong and again the best version I had ever heard him do. He starts Heart And Soul, and it’s finally sinking in, this just isn’t fair, same reaction, best version ever. Then Josh takes off on his first major, extended, off the hook solo and the crowd that had been standing and whipped into a frenzy from the very beginning, just … went … wild. It was ON! These guys are serious and this is for real. I don’t even need to pinch myself. Nobody can stand still, much less set down. Taylor had already said, I’m glad you guys are up and enjoying yourselves … and we were.
OK, hold the phone, Taylor’s got an announcement. Since he had decided to put this new band together and try this thing out again, what better song to break them in on than this old Les McCann tune and I couldn’t have agreed more. The one and only song that I had even hoped he would play. He goes over and grabs this big ol’ black cow bell. He starts the band playing Compared To What and right on cue and in perfect rhythm he starts whacking the hell out of that cow bell. It fit perfectly with the song and he had that part down. They were all jamming just ripping that song up when Brian took his first stand out, steal the song honors solo. Unbelievable, it just kept building. Each song was the best when it was being played then next song they stepped it up again and it was even better than the one before. I completely lost my voice during Soul Thing. I couldn’t make a sound come out of my mouth that I could hear, much less anybody else could hear. I had to write notes to my wife standing right next to me to even communicate. When somebody around me asked the name of a song, which happened several times because they saw that I was taking notes, I had to just point to it on my paper as I soon learned I couldn’t scream loud enough for them to hear me. It’s been two days later as I’m writing this and I still can’t hardly talk. Oh Well.
Share_A_Smile & Family’s First Live Taylor Hicks Experience – Part 3
Taylor Debuts some new stuff off the upcoming album and the new guys get their turn in the spotlight.
Taylor introduces the next song simply as a Ray Charles song. It’s called Hide Nor Hair and it’s gonna be on the new album. I had only heard the new single What’s Right Is Right and the leak of Nineteen and was not wild about either of them. Well this song, people, put me firmly back in the “can’t wait for the new album” camp. It’s funky, it moves, it has great lyrics which Taylor seems to know really well LOL. It just seems like they have been doing this song forever, Live. It rocked. They rocked it. It worked. Taylor said again after the song, a Ray Charles song, Ray Charles. Yeah, I think he likes it and so did I. It was also the first song of the night that he broke out his harp. Did I say it was good? It was good.
The next song was The Deal. Sounded great, but a slight let down after just hearing Hide Nor Hair, Live, that was all I could think of, still in my head when he was doing The Deal.
Then Taylor started talking about Bobby Womack and one of his albums we should all check out. I think it was The Essentials. Anyway I knew what song was coming from discussion on-line, but had never heard it. Wooohhh, this song is killer. I’m talking smoking hot. Woman’s Got To Have It, is what I think I was hearing him sing, but the song may be called Woman’s Gotta Have It. I looked it up and found it listed both ways on different sites with each looking legit so I’m not sure which is correct. It doesn’t matter. (Potato/Potata) This was the best song of the night, by far, and is probably gonna be my favorite song on the new CD. The ending was the best part for me. Brian, Josh, and Taylor were off … the … frickin’ charts. Frenzied, yet right together. Again, the best of the night. Nothing topped this one, for me. I hope he has more in him like this one.
Next song, Gonna Move. Yadda yadda yadda. It was good, really good. But I was still in recovery from the last song. It was a good change of pace to let me catch my breath and sit down for a second. You know just sing along, silently in my case.
The next song Taylor said they were bringing back a favorite from the last tour that they were re-vamping and were gonna keep in the new tour, upcoming. A Disco song, I knew immediately what he meant and jumped out of my seat before he could even get out “by the legend, Boz Scaggs.” Cool – my second request, Lowdown. The new bass player was standout in this song. The way he hits that chord so hard then squashes it out and rubs it with the palm of his hand. So cool. It’s a little bit like the Eagles’ Victim Of Love where the bass player catches the string to shorten the tone duration. It gives you that bomp…bomp….bomp…boooommm..boooommm..bomp…. So cool. I get off on stuff like that. Anyway Lowdown was really cool watching the bass player. Then Taylor starts scatting. OMG, he does that soooo well. I saw on-line today that people were talking about the “talking guitar.” It wasn’t a talking guitar it was a “talking organ.” It was Kenny Crouch and when he broke out that voice box synthesizer it pushed that song right over the edge. The facial expressions people were talking about was because it was his voice being synthesized through that organ. Think “Frampton Comes Alive, Do You Feel”, that is what he was doing. Old School? Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him doing it with Clapton (possibly on Badge), and believe me, he’s good. It works. The crowd loved it. I loved it.
The next song starts out with all band members, even Taylor, standing perfectly still, posed, looking over at Kenny on the organ and he plays some slow, haunting, yet unrecognizable organ solo for a couple minutes, then all of a sudden they all break into What’s Right Is Right. I’m not sure what I think of this song yet, but it is still evolving. They’re obviously still tweaking it. It’s improving. One thing I must admit is that it is so simple and so repetitive that it kind of hypnotizes you, and it pops into your head at weird and random times like a jingle used for advertisement. You might even hate it, but you find yourself whistling or singing it at times because it’s stuck in your head. That’s called a hook and it’s got you, fight it all you want, but somebody is reeling you in. One thing is for sure when he points at the audience the last time he sings “What’s wrong with you” (and back to himself with his thumb) when he sings “is wrong with me” and then “WRIR”, a lot of you may start to like it better. That last line seemed to work on the ladies in the crowd that night even though he had already sang it like a 100 times. At the end he just mumbled, that’s the new single, no hoopla.
He ended the show the way he usually does with Runaround, gives the drummer a little spotlight with the opening drum line. He goes right into Baby Please Don’t Go which I don’t list as a tag because he plays so much of it and he never returns to Runaround. He Introduces all of the band members and where they are from. (Class) Starting with Brian, then Josh, then the drummer who’s name I didn’t catch (I believe he said he was from TN), the bass guitar player who’s name I didn’t catch (I believe he said he was from L.A.), and then he said you get what you pay for, Kenny Crouch.
The encore, Badge was excellent. It was one of the highest songs Taylor did all night (pitch wise) and Taylor hit every note as strong and clear as he was when the night first started. Josh was unbelievable how easy he makes a Clapton classic look. He really stepped it up on the last song. He had removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He needs his tattoos showing to get into that song, I guess. LOL When Taylor was yelling Where’s My Badge, Where’s my Badge at the end they were really cooking. Then Taylor left the stage for the last time for the night and Josh took over leading the band and did another killer solo and then brought it on home. It was an excellent show.
I think because he’s been jonesing so bad to get back on (his) stage while doing Grease, and because he is so proud of this new material and the old songs he has to draw from, he’s in such good voice right now because he’s not touring yet, he’s performing almost everyday in Grease keeping his voice in tip-top shape, that all things considered I bet this is one of the best shows he’s ever done…. and I hope to hell he recorded it off the sound board. If he didn’t he’s crazy. One more thing, he had the entire cast from Grease there. Believe me people when I tell you… because I was….a witness. He lit the place up and then burnt it down. This was a keeper, “One for The Vault”, a “Perfect Show.”
Posted by peaches 
Posted by peaches 
