“Cross the water when the, ice is hard. You’ve sung your song now, wait for the applause.” Tour is back and so is our weekly wrap up! Wow, where to even start? Since our last freak transmission, the vibrations within our CRB universe have been quite active. We’ve had a CR solo show, a webcast originating from the hallowed halls of the Capitol Theatre, with Betty on the boards no less, a spooky night shaking our bones in CO and oh yeah, just full 2018 European tour dates! Isn’t it beautiful seeing all this organic oscillation and expansion of our cosmic commune? It really is an exciting time to be among the enlightened CRBeings of the land. Rejoice and get down!
During the break, Bay Area Freaks sent reports back of CR sightings at all the usual spots. Sitting in with friends to help scratch that itch until an evening in Monterey with old and new music all under the same nebulas design. BC faithfuls such as Hotel Illness and Good Friday existed peacefully among rarities like Wanderer’s Lament and deep cut covers like VU’s, Femme Fatale and Steve Young’s, Rock Salt & Nails. The bus engines electric glow didn’t dim long before the band was back lighting it up again in California, kicking off the latest lysergic leg of their Barefoot Tour with a one set blazer in Placerville on 10/27. Warming it all back up obviously didn’t take long and even a cursory glance at the setlist reveals a devotional dance-off second half. Good To Know, Narcissus, Ain’t It Hard, Vibration, Ain’t Hiding, Shore Power??? I hope you didn’t loose your dancin’ shoes or your mind navigating those rhythm section rapids.
We all know once is never enough when it comes to that golden state. So before again branching out, the friendly faces of Santa Barbara, California welcomed our barterers of bliss. Tulsa received a new pairing with Only Daddy, but it was the Blue Star Woman> Jam> Clear Blue Sky> Sunday Sound that triggered all the post show buzz. Roy Orbison’s Dream Baby and the classic Bye & Bye were special bookends to a flawless hour and a half of music in the second. They’ve been slowing things down with Heart To Break just before the set closer and man when they kicked back into the rave and swing of Got Love here, it was all the Lobero could do to keep from levitating right into the uppermost.
While the elevated ideas and purple plumes of Colorado waited patiently across that great divide, the band was busy dodging the dead and grooving through the ghouls as our October hours grew late. Arriving, in costume, at the Gothic in Englewood for a Halloween party to end them all! Donavan’s ode to the Season Of The Witch was a wicked wind to start and it was all treats from there. Some first time played cover tricks, Lil’ Red Riding Hood, Lucifer Sam and Bela Lugosi’s Dead had everyone lit up like a pumpkin with the latter giving nod to the theatre’s Gothic theme. There was plenty of original CRB cosmic candy to hand out like the twisted Tulsa> Cali Hymn in the first and a second set Good To Know> Narcissus that was groove theory 101. It was the usual no rest for the wicked as the gang hurried quickly off to the East Coast for a busy start to the month of November and some evenings within some truly legendary confines.
Westbury, NY on 11/2, provided the proper Space for all things medicinal and musical. It was Neal’s birthday after all and the resulting first set was more than worthy of such a vast and variated canvas. The vibrations peaked around Lizzie Mae and that line of sustained excellence ran playfully through Cali Hymn> New Cannonball> Tomorrow Blues, before finally exploding into the bluesman boogie of Poor Elijah/R. Johnson. The second set synapse singeing continued deep into the night and the show somehow found a way to contain a late Shore Power AND Rosalee! They were certainly in fine freak form as they headed for Port Chester and a nationwide audience with Ms Cantor-Jackson at the wheel!
As if playing the Capitol Theatre wasn’t already cause for absurd amounts of excitement, the announcement of Betty’s inclusion along with the webcast caused nothing short of a holiday within our Hallucination Nation. The first set felt like a really big second and held another airing of Tulsa, Only Daddy and the galactic, glowing Clear Blue> Sunday Sound, Vibration> Ain’t Hiding. The second was more of the same with the beautiful and increasingly rare Burn Slow melting slowly over our conscience and a roof retracting Got Love that sent everyone up once last time! And what a gift the encore was, coming only hours after CR dropped some knowledge on us all, he seemed to sing Lennon’s Watching The Wheels with a smile directed at inner peace, satisfaction, love and happiness. Bless you boys and bless you Betty!!
The open hearts and minds within and around this road-show, packed it all in and headed up 95 to Hartford where being free of nostalgia and never ones to rest on their accomplishments, the band was back at it and everything was sure all right for Saturday Night! An exciting setlist and some serious on stage alchemy both acted as reagents in revealing a whole other layer. The dark and ominous undercurrents originating from the opening Forever As The Moon set a tone they revisited often during the night. Classics finding their way among the first set mix included About A Stranger and a BIG more or less stand alone Meanwhile In The Gods. Good To Know really got the second going and the psychedelic currents within 100 Days really ran deep. A massive cerebral, celebratory release arrived wrapped in a closing final flare of Ain’t It Hard, Shore Power. And the night ending on our second Femme Fatal of the tour was a perfect way to wrap up a wild and wonderful week in the Brotherhood bubble.
These next 7 days won’t find any dust settling on the bands bare feet. Tonight we setup our soul soaring shop in Burlington, VT before dates in Portland, ME (11/7), Providence, RI (11/9) and Niagara, NY (11/10). Finally ending the week with stops in Cleveland (11/11) and Grand Rapids, MI (11/12). Ticket links for all the coming weeks shows are below, so don’t miss a beat! And as we mentioned in the open, the Barefoot Tour is heading abroad in March of 2018! We’ve all got plenty of time to secure those passports and pack our bags before we head out to spread some Freak California love and boogie to the rest of the world. Don’t forget, we will have food and clothing drop locations at many of the upcoming California shows so stay tuned for more info. To all those who contacted us to volunteer for our Ravens Reels Almanac CRB Street Team, we are working on getting all the flyers ready so keep an eye out for a message from us soon. And remember, a Sunday Sound spent well brings a weeks worth of content! The CRB loves you!! Freak On brothers and sisters!!!
#crb #chrisrobinsonbrotherhood #sleepinpeacewilddarkriders #letthecrbsetyoufree #freakfamily #barefootinthehead #freakflag #blissmerchants #ravensreels #freaktransmissions #crbismagic #crbeings #spaceisonthephone #alanforbes ✌️👁🔮🌟🌙🍄🚀🏹🦉
(Info & Tickets for the week of 11/5-11/12)
