Went to Ravinia tonight. Jonnell convinced me to go see Los Lonely Boys. From their singles, I figured they would be some kind of semi-light rock band. Man was I wrong.
The opening act was James Hunter. I had never heard of him, he is a British rockabilly singer and guitar player. He had a cool band with a couple of sax players & a stand up bass. Bad camera phone picture:
I thought they were great. I'm going to buy their new album off Amazon tonight. His keyboard player is the first guy I remember seeing at a Ravinia show who got a girl from the audience to go backstage with him. It was very funny. Usually the opening act band members don't get groupies.
OK, on to the main act. Los Lonely Boys were pretty damn amazing. They are very different live than any of their studio records. They were more like Santana (I know a cliched comparison) or Stevie Ray Vaughn. Henry Garza is a great guitar player and his brother Jojo played a great six string bass. Henry played a little harmonica in one of the songs and threw in the hook from Low Rider, which was pretty cool. They played a great cover of Superstition as well.
For the encore, the brothers brought out their father to play with them. He came out in a big cowboy hat and white shirt, like an old time western singer. He sang "Folsom Prison Blues" and you could tell where the boys got alot of the singing ability from. They closed out the concert with their big hit Heaven. At the end, Jojo was letting the kids in the front of the audience sing the refrain, it was pretty cute.
I wasn't a fan of Los Lonely Boys before, but I am now. The next time they come back to Chicago, I will definitely be in the audience.
Here is most of our dinner at the concert, a cheese & meat tray from Trotters to Go:
It was really excellent. Also, we had pudding from Trotters. Trotters to go has great food to bring out to Ravinia and really isn't any more expensive than buying food at the park.
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