It’s mostly couples, but they don’t have room to dance save for a shrug of the shoulders or the shifting of weight from one foot to another. Coupled with the noise coming from the opening band—the Ivan Milev Band, a six-piece Bulgarian folk band pared down to its two founders, accordionist Ivan Milev and fiddler Entcho Todorov—the scene inside the ballroom evokes anxiety, sweaty shiftlessness.
 Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. |
Or maybe the crowd is sweating because they dressed for the occasion, a night of brassy tunes that raise the temperature inside the Satellite Ballroom to the unbearable swelter of Motown, not a real place but a sound designed by Smokey Robinson, Holland-Dozier-Holland and other songwriters that spent summers on the steamy asphalt streets of Detroit. Coats are hung on a rack near a window and, when it fills, are tossed over onto the windowsill behind it or shoved beneath the drooping arms and hems.
Milev and Todorov are driving listeners to the bar to get cool and loose. The duo’s songs all seem to end at double-time, and the combination of fiddle and accordion gives their music the sound of hungry lungs raking in air in gasps. Their quick approach to live performance, however, keeps the bulk of the sold-out room from abandoning their set entirely (although there are most likely a few people that pressed to the front of the room early to nab prime dancing spots for the headlining act).
As the stage is primed for the Dap-Kings’ entrance, an African-American man in his 40s and his wife exchange glances and alternately turn towards a younger woman that wears a black, pin-striped minidress as she wears her 20-ish years—with an anticipatory mix of confidence and cautious preparation. The man and his wife chat a bit, and he approaches the younger woman and compliments her on her outfit; she accepts graciously and her confidence tips the scales a bit. Her date compliments this older man on his jacket—paisley-patterned and dark blue with black lapels—and the foursome jokes that “you have to pick the outfit to match the sound.”
A fanfare sounds through the ballroom’s loudspeakers and the crowd cheers as the eight Dap-Tones step onstage, suit jackets buttoned as they pick up their guitars and horns, their own outfits elevated to match the brassy, “Watch me, now” blaring of their horns. Guitarist and emcee Binky Griptite (motto on his MySpace page: “‘Retro’ is a trend. ‘Old School’ is an attitude.”) introduces the band with a few jabs and an uppercut: “Ladies and gentlemen…we are the Dap-Kings!” Griptite leads the stellar Dap-Kings ensemble, house band for Daptones Records and recently acclaimed for their work with Amy Winehouse, through his tune “Mello Matic Mood” and a few funk instrumentals before calling out Sharon Jones.
If audience members run the risk of sweating or swaying out of their clothes, Jones—a plump soul queen with calves and shoulders as strong as her rattling pipes—seems as though she might rip right through hers onstage. She shakes and struts wildly, occasionally hoisting up her thin-strapped top with a hand that wildly accuses, testifies and slaps the air during the bubbling “How Do I Let a Good Man Down?” and the staggering sex of “Fish in the Dish” (second only to “Let Them Knock” in racy implications).
By the time Jones and her impeccable, relentless band rip through the power anthem “Nobody’s Fool,” the baritone sax squeals of “I’m Not Gonna Cry” and Jones’ ruined lover’s wail in “How Long Do I Have to Wait?” the man in the paisley jacket is on his feet and, while there’s no sign of sweat on his jacket, his face gleams as he shuffles in his limited space to the rounded sound of reverb-heavy funk guitars. Onstage, Jones pulls up three women to dance, and the excitement proves almost too much for one woman as she gets wide-legged and low with her moves, then closes in on Jones while the soul queen sings, as if the Motown sound is encouraging her with the two messages it knows best—a heated relationship or a chilly independence, both overwhelming.
