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May 26, 2006

Tommy Castro at Mystic Theatre 5/13/06 by Jack Cohen

Last Saturday's show at McNear's Mystic Theatre in Petaluma started
off with Johnny Nitro & The Doorslammers who did a spectacular set.
Johnny mentored Thomas in his tip jar days and was the previous owner
of a couple of TC's favorite axes. Nitro's triple threat
(vocals/sax/wife) Syliva used the hall's acoustics to make everyone
take notice of her saxology while laying on her back or doing back
bends and other tricks that make Randy McDonald's occasional antics
seem pretty tame and provided some great vocals as well.


Johnny had founding Doorslammer member Johnny Ace on bass. He is not just a great bass player but is a fantastic showman and his "Funky Broadway" was a show stopper. Scott Silviera, longtime vet of great blues bands like the The Craig Horton Band, was on drums and his young son Miles played conga and bongos with skill worthy of someone much, much more seasoned. Ending their set Johnny let everyone know that Tommy was coming on next and said, "I've taught Tommy everything he knows--but, I didn't teach him eveything I know!"

The Tommmy Castro Band was fortunate to have Tom Poole in trumpet on a night off from Etta James' Roots Band. What can I say, Tommy was very excited that he was gonna be able to have his pals Johnny and Johnny on stage with him for a jam at the end of the concert and used that energy to provide us all with another great night of TCB songs both old and newer. The crowd was one of the best behaved I've seen in this venue and everyone, audience and band members seemed to be having as much fun as they could and still be wearing pants (that's one of my favorite Nitro lines).

Instead of the usual encore Tommy just paused long enough to bring
his pals Johnny and Johnny on stage to fill out the night in a repeat
of the musical "duel" they had seven or eight years earlier onboard a
Blues Cruise on San Francisco Bay put on by Laura "Lou Gillespie, the
original owner of Lou's Pier 47 on Fisherman's Wharf. The home page
of my other internet hangout, the Bay Area Blues Club, has a photo
taken on that day that you can see by using this link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bayareablues
Tommy and Johnny Nitro had great fun trying to out gun each other and
Ace filled in every space with his bass. It's always fun to be at a
TCB show when the band is having more fun than the audience and this
was one I'll remember as one of the best I've been lucky enough to
attend.

Jack

Posted by Rolfyboy6 at May 26, 2006 04:37 PM

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