Keystone Revisited featuring Sunshine Becker, Vernon Black, Danny Eisenberg, Scott Guberman, Bradley Leach, Jonny Mojo, Dante "Taz" Roberson, Matt Salata, & Tony Saunders
Cypress Station
Cypress Dr., Fairfax, CA 94930 USA
4:00 PM, Friday, December 10, 2021

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[4:55 PM] {finally getting ready…soundcheck on-the-fly during the first tune}

1. [5:00 PM] ? (improv jam with Sunshine singing} »
2. [5:07 PM] Bridge Over Troubled Water (SB)
3. [5:10 PM] Shining Star (SB)
4. [5:22 PM] Iko Iko (SG)
5. [5:30 PM] Ain't No Sunshine (VR-SB)
6. [5:35 PM] Fire on the Mountain (SB) » [5:40 PM] {Tony Saunders pokes his head in the back gate, drops off some gear}
   [5:44 PM] {set break to allow Tony to get set up}

1. [6:09 PM] That's What Love Will Make You Do (SB)
   {Long band introduction by Tony; story time about the old days}
2. [6:25 PM] the Harder They Come (SG)
3. [6:35 PM] the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (SG)
   [6:45 PM] {the set continues, but we gotta split: time to head to Berkeley for the next show!}

• Sunshine Becker: flute, percussion, lead and harmony vox;
• Vernon Black: guitar;
• Danny Eisenberg: keyboards;
• Scott Guberman: keyboards, Hammond B3 organ, lead and harmony vox;
• Bradley T ¨BT¨ Leach: drums;
• Jonny Mojo: guitar, cigar box guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Dante "Taz" Roberson: drums;
• Matt Salata: guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Tony Saunders: bass, lead and harmony vox.

Danny Eisenberg was scheduled to play, but is on COVID-19 exposure quarantine. Jonny Mojo was also scheduled to play, but has COVID-19 – hopefully he'll be better soon! I didn't hear anything about why BT or Matt got swapped out today, but when we arrived (just about 4:20 PM), the only band members present were Scott, Sunshine, and Taz. It was clear to me right then that things were haywire, but there wasn't anything I could do, so I socialized and waited. Vernon showed up around quarter to five, and once he got his gear packed in, things started moving a little more quickly. I didn't pay enough attention to the first tune to identify it any better, but it was a very loose, noodling jam, with improv lyrics from Sunshine about being happy to be at Cypress Station today.

Bridge Over Troubled Water seemed like an unusual choice – I'm not aware that Jerry ever covered it – but it worked well enough. Surprisingly, Shining Star seemed a little rough to me, as if the band members couldn't quite agree on how the changes were supposed to go. Making it a sing-along at the end helped pull things together a bit. Vernon introduced Ain't No Sunshine with a comment that Sunshine would be laying out for this tune, but I guess she felt like singing, since she popped back on stage to take the lead from him on the last verse. Fire on the Mountain was performed with a bit of a reggae feel, and worked pretty well considering the lack of bass guitar – maybe Scott was covering that part with keyboard bass? I wasn't paying quite enough attention to answer that question. Tony appeared mid-way through to drop off his amp and some gear, and after they wrapped up FotM, Sunshine announced that they were going to take a short break before resuming with a long second set.

Tony apologized for being late during break, and explained that he'd forgotten to pack his gear into the car that morning before heading to Skywalker Ranch for a session, and so had to head from Novato to Hercules and back to Fairfax during rush hour. Sounds stressful! I'm glad that he made it: the fraction of the second set that we heard was vastly improved by the addition of his bass playing to the ensemble.

It would have been nice to stay and hear more, but we had a previously scheduled show to get to: Jazzmeia Horn at the Zellerbach Playhouse in Berkeley, so we ducked out at 6:45 PM and zoomed back across the bay for that. Hit the 'next event' link below to skip on my writeup for that one!

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!