Loose Leaf Notes

I can’t think of anything more fun than dancing to The Kind with others who love their music as much as I do.  There is camaraderie on the dance floor and everywhere you look people are smiling, spinning and stomping, swaying and singing along.  Some fans I only see at their concerts, but once the music starts it’s like we’re long lost friends with the common language we share being “dance.”

They came to Floyd last night to celebrate their 27^th year as a band.  Although based out of Blacksburg, the band has strong Floyd ties.  In the earliest days, 1986, they played a benefit for The Blue Mountain School at the VFW hall in Floyd.  After that, a group of us would travel to Blacksburg once or so a month to catch them at the old South Main Café.  Their ties with the Floyd’s Pine Tavern (where they played last night) also goes way back, with their long time annual Halloween and New Year’s Eve parties being held there.

The beauty of it all is that my relationship with Joe is also nearly 27 years old (26), so for him and me and others who traveled to Blacksburg to catch the band at South Main back in the day, a whole shared history of time was being celebrated.  And it’s not just the memory of 27 years that gets celebrated at a Kind concert.   Because they play primarily some of the best of the 60’s and 70’s, their music brings me back to the flower child days of my youth.

Mainly a Grateful Dead cover jam band (sometimes billed as hillbilly psychedelic), they always throw a few surprises in the mix, old loved tunes that haven’t been heard in too long from the Beatles, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and others.  Last night it was All Along the Watchtower, a  Lynyrd Skinner and Eric Clapton song, along with the well loved Dead favorites that the crowd goes crazy for.  A host of special guest band mates from the past joined the mainstay players on stage throughout the night.

The bottom line is that The Kind and their fans raise a whole lot of energy and feelings of love.  So, happy anniversary to us all!

Post notes:  That’s original band member Mark McLeod in the last shot smiling at  his mother who he was happy made the show. HERE is a post on The Kind’s 25th anniversary party at the Pine.