I had a nephew in town tonight and so it was a good excuse to get out.  A little dinner at the Galloway Grill and then a short hop over to the Haymarket for some beers and music.  The band was GFY.  Sort of a subset of the Eau Claire Blues All Stars …which you don't hear much about lately.  Perhaps they are not playing anymore?  The Haymarket Grill was fairly quiet but the band did well playing to the small crowd.  It was a good night for some blues.

The band, GFY, plays very mellow blues.  After her salmon dinner, and some slow relaxing GFY music The Wife was near to nodding off several times.  It was pretty light for my taste, particularly the first set.  The second set was a little more up beat and I liked it more.  Singer Adrian Klenz has a great voice, and Jeff Walk was producing sounds out of a trumpet that I never thought possible.  Eric Thompson is always a consistently good bass player on what I think is the widest necked bass guitar I have ever seen.

I was glad to have a positive Bill Hamilton experience.  I like Bill.  Bill seems like a great guy.  An amazing guitar player, but yet I am not a huge fan of his bands.    I don't think it is a quality issue, I think it might be a jazz issue.  Or a mellowness issue.  His bands, Little Willie and Excellent Adventure, where he plays and sings lead are certainly popular so I would say its just me.

GFY sings us some light blues at Haymarket Grill - dark video, it was the best I could do.

The Haymarket Grill was dark, and with few people in it, particularly echoey.  The band was able to overpower the bad acoustics.  When we first walked in it was also cold, and eyeball drying, with the ceiling fans turning at full speed.   Singer Adrian Klenz had trouble keeping his song sheets from blowing away, finally resorting to a paperweight to hold them.  Eventually we asked if they could be turned down.  Staff couldn't figure out how to do that but they were able to turn them off, which was better yet.

Late in the second set Jim Pullman, who was sitting in the audience was pulled up on stage and did a fantastic job at Prince's Purple Rain Sorry GFY, this was my musical highpoint for the night.

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