Chicago-based Lubriphonic to perform at Yacht Club
Lubriphonic will bring its funky style of blues to Iowa City tonight.
The Chicago-based group will perform its third show at the Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St., at 10 p.m. today. Opening the show will be Messy Blend (which includes members of Nifty Mountain Pow Wow) in its first-ever gig.
Members of Lubriphonic include Giles Corey on guitars & vocals, Pennal Johnson on bass, Richard King on drums, Norman Palm on trombone, Garrick Patten on saxophone, and Andrew Toombs on keyboards, with Calvin Holbrook serving as the Tour Mystic (a.k.a. the tour manager).
Pete McCarthy, the general manager of the Yacht Club, said the group plays some fantastic blues.
“The horn section is powerful,” he said. “It’s a Chicago sound, man. They’re huge there.
“We don’t get too much of that down here. It just makes me think of Chicago, sweet home Chicago.”
Corey describes the shows as having a high-energy dance-party vibe.
“It’s basically a combination of Led Zeppelin, James Brown, and Curtis Mayfield,” he said. “We got a lot of up-beat funky grooves. First and foremost, it’s a good time.”
Lubriphonic recently rocked out at the Chicago Blues Festival, where it shared the stage with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Guitar Shorty, among others.
“That was great, because we haven’t played in Chicago in months, and to come back and play at the festival was really special,” Corey said.
New Orleans musician Ivan Neville sat in with the group to play a few songs during the festival. He then stayed in town to record some music for the band’s new album, The Gig is On, which will include 14 new songs, 13 originals and one cover (“Hell Below,” by Curtis Mayfield). Four of the songs include Neville, and the album is set to be released in September.
Lubriphonic will play several music festivals all over the country this summer, and it will also play many smaller shows at venues such as the Yacht Club, the Cabooze in Minneapolis, Thunderbird Café in Pittsburgh, and Broadway Oyster Bar in St. Louis.
“As a musician, you always want to have the most number of people hear what you’re doing. The more people that are in a room, the more energy that kind of goes back and forth between the band and the audience,” Corey said. “I think it tends to be a more powerful experience. But when you can make eye contact with most of the audience, it is also pretty cool.”
On the band’s website, lubriphonic.com, fans can download more than an hour of free music from some of the band’s live albums.
After playing in Iowa tonight, the group will perform in Minneapolis and then in Chicago, and after that, it will travel to Idaho and Utah. A couple weeks later, it will be back in the Midwest playing at Summerfest, then go back out West again before coming back to Iowa to play at Camp Euforia next month.
Because of the rigorous schedule, Lubriphonic rarely has time to stop working. Its massive amount of touring shows not only that the band members love music, they love playing music for the people.
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