The last time I saw local fusion pioneers Bertha Coolidge play, I admit, I was a little underwhelmed. Could have been the venue: the parking-lot stage behind the Bronx Zoo Sports Café off West Seventh Street, many moons ago for our annual Fort Worth Weekly Music Awards.
The sun was beating down, there weren’t many people there, and, damn, a sunny outdoor setting is the last place you’d expect – or want – to see the kind of fusion Bertha kicks out: biting and groovy but with midnight subtleties that undoubtedly are best appreciated in an intimate, dimly lit club, with the shine of booze bottles and aroma of stale cigarettes in the air, and rhythmically bobbing heads.
A kind of place like Lola’s, where Bertha played a reunion gig of sorts last Tuesday night – all four guys have (music) day jobs and can get together only rarely. Vibraphonist Joey Carter, guitarist Paul Metzger, and drummer Rick Stitzel are music instructors, and bassist Aden Bubeck plays with the touring band of commercial-country-radio darling and Grammy-winner Miranda Lambert. Compounded by the fact that Stitzel lives in Chicago, Bertha-gigs are really few and far between. And when they do happen, you’d be forgiven for expecting a modicum of sloppiness or lots of dead air. Alas, Bertha’s Lola’s show was tight and not only one of the best shows I’ve seen this year but also one of Bertha’s best ever. Not according to me – I haven’t seen them in years, ‘member? But according to Carter.
I bumped into him at the bar between sets and mentioned to him how astonished I was at their tightness, focus, and energy. “I know!” he said, and went on to share my complex emotion of something between happy, startled, and thrilled. No one knows how the magic happens, but the logical conclusion is that when guys as technically proficient and in tune with one another as the Berthans – they’ve been playing together for over a decade – get together, there’s always the chance that all the stars will align. Even if something had gone wrong at Lola’s, however, it would have been neutralized by the unvanquishable vibe. Even the young local hipsters who had never heard of the band hung around for the whole show.
Visit www.myspace.com/berthacoolidge. … Got this heads-up correspondence from Weekly staff writer Jeff Prince: April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Catholic Charities’ Second Annual CARE Concert will honor the occasion on Friday at 8 p.m. by holding a concert at the aforementioned Lola’s (2736 W. 6th St.). Phil Pritchett and the Full Band are headlining, with special guests Jordan Mycoskie, Kurt South, Magee Payne, and others. Admission is $10, and all proceeds go toward CARE.
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