The Boxmasters The Surf Ballroom Clear Lake, Iowa April 24, 2015 There’s just not that many places left that
capture the history and sanctity of Rock and Roll as much as the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. That’s why watching the Boxmas- ters, play live in this chapel of rock, made for an absolutely perfect night for soaking up the wonderful music and the fantastic stories that go with them, as sung and told by front man Billy Bob “Bud” Thornton. The Box- masters are: Thorn- ton, co-founder/guitarist J.D. Andrew, gui- tarist Brad Davis, and keyboardist ex- traordinaire Teddy 'Zig Zag' Andreadis. The band, all
sporting Liverpool Beatles suits, took the stage, kicking the evening off with a rock- ing performance of “Emily” off Thornton’s 2003 Solo album, The Edge of the World. I love that classic western sound Davis squeezes out of his guitar on “Providence.” Davis grabs my full attention again in “Beau- tiful.” He’s such a fantastic guitarist. Thornton, in a really down-to-earth and
heartfelt moment, discussed how much of an honor it was to be playing at the Surf. His honesty and sincerity was felt by everyone. The band then tore through nine consecutive songs off their latest release, Somewhere Down the Road. It was so cool to hear the new tracks “Sometimes There’s a Reason,” “This Game is Over,” and “Kathy Don’t Share.” Immediately following a brief spo-
ken-word introduction from Thornton ex- plaining how religion is a good thing, unless it gets in the hands of the wrong people, An- dreadis starts “Piece of the Sky” on his Ham- mond B-3 in a performance fit for Sunday morning church. After asking the audience about their
thoughts on political correctness and profan- ity, Thornton indeed got their blessing to play an explicit song or two. It was so fun to hear the rarely played tongue-in- cheek song, “I’ll Give You a Ring (when you give me back my balls)”, from their self-titled album. A request from the audi-
ence for a song from the late great Warren Zevon prompted Thornton to reminisce about his good friend. He explained they had met each other at the mail box, while living in the same apartment building. They ironically got to talk- ing about a common trait they both suffer from, ob- sessive compulsive disor-
der. The Boxmasters then broke into a Zevon-esque written song, “I Shot Him Down.” “Island Avenue,” a song off of Billy Bob’s album, The Edge of the World, and written by Thornton’s late brother Jimmy was a jam-filled treat. After an intense and funky keyboard solo from Andreadis on the Ham- mond, the band played tight as hell. This was rock and roll at its finest. “Hope for Glory,” the last song of the set was dedicated to everyone who was in the military or had lost someone in war. From Thornton’s vocals to Davis’s killer guitar, the band in general just gels so nicely. For an encore, the Boxmasters returned to
stage in a slightly different configuration, fea- turing Andreadis this time, on harmonica,
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