THE BRAND NEW HEAVIES
(w/ TARAGIRL)

At the Borgata's Music Box - Atlantic City, NJ (7/14/06)

 


 

I arrived in Atlantic City around 7:45pm to hang out with some of the Soul-Patrol Philly members and the mastermind of Soul-Patrol.com, Mr. Bob Davis & his wife. After having dinner, it was time to go to the Borgata's Music Box room and check out the new Philly R&B sensation, Taragirl.

Taragirl started at 9:00pm in grand fashion, boldly performing the Lyn Collins signature hit "Think (About It)"...Taragirl has a soulful voice that worked well with the song and the band was kicking out some funk. The only thing that was missing was probably a real horn section for this song. The next four songs were Taragirl originals, including "Stop Holdin' On" featuring a good bass line. The third original song had a little more of a rock influence. The Taragirl set ended at 9:30pm.

 

At 9:55pm, the Brand New Heavies came out and started performing the funky, funky "Right On" (with the lyrics "Bring back the funky music")...this is like some JB's style funk with lead vocals by the beautiful N'Dea Davenport, some lead guitar fire by Simon Bartholomew and some blazing solos on trumpet and trombone!!! "Dream on Dreamer" was good, as well as the standout organ work on "Daybreak". The fans were finally starting to rid themselves of the Sir Nose disease and began to dance...butts were shaking to the upbeat "Get Back to Love", featuring some lead vocals by drummer Jan Kincaid!! OH YES!! The funk bomb dropped when the band started doing the title track to their new album "Get Used To It"...talk about dark, moody bass riffs by Andrew Levy (I mean some funky stuff) matched with scratch-style lead guitar riffing & distorted guitarisms (both by Simon)...this stuff reminded me of War back in the mid 70's (the closest thing that I can think of right now is War's "Sun Oh Son") "I Dont Know Why (I Love You)", a remake of The Jackson 5 classic, featured N'Dea doing her most emotive vocals...girl can SANG! "Spend Some Time" was another crowd favorite, but better was the performance of the encouraging "Brother Sister" (suggested by me and three other female fans), where the band went into a good funk jam featuring a hot muted-trumpet solo!!! The encore included the first hit for the band "Never Stop" and "Dream Come True", two hot songs that got everyone dancing about...if the f**kin' security guards weren't so uptight, a lot of folks would have been partying in the aisles and airthang else! THESE BOYZ CAN DEFINITELY JAM!! The Brand New Heavies set was over at 11:15pm.



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