A couple of weeks back GrassHopper invited me to go check out a bar in Fort Worth that is supposed to be one of the best live music bars in the area. It’s called The Keys Lounge and is a blues bar.
We got over there a tad early and since we weren’t quite sure what to expect we grabbed a table towards the back. Hopper had heard it was open mike night and was hoping to get a chance to play with the band a little bit.
We talked to the waitress some and found out that it was, in fact, open mike night and she’d see what she could do to get him on stage at some point. We also learned that the owners of the bar have successful business ventures and opened the joint so that they would have a place to jam on a regular basis.
The bar itself wasn’t that much to talk about. The stage was off to the side, with a dance floor in the middle and seating areas on three sides with the bar on the fourth side. Kind of your typical blues bar that was almost, but not quite, a dive.
But that’s about where anything resembling “normal” came to a screeching halt. We started realizing it wasn’t going to be a typical night when the waitress couldn’t seem to remember our drink orders. As Hopper pointed out, she was a great waitress provided that you didn’t care what you were drinking. No matter what beers he or his date ordered she kind of brought whatever she wanted. I think they drank about six kinds of beer between them even though they ordered the same thing every time. I had Jack and Cokes that always seem to come out right.
Since we had gotten there a tad early there weren’t that many people, but we kind of noticed that most of the crowd was older. How much older? Umm….late 50’s, 60’s and probably even a few 70’s in there. We were the youngest folks, but didn’t think much of it because it was so early.
As the band started setting up more and more people started showing up. Mind you, this was a Thursday night and we could tell it was about to get busy….but not with a bunch of young, rowdy college kids. Nope, the age bracket wasn’t changing…there were just more of them. Before too long the place was packed, and I mean PACKED with old people. Some even had their walkers and canes ‘n shit. We were guessing if more men, or more women, had their hair dyed. It was really bizarre.
But these folks weren’t just “sitting around!!” they were getting out there on the dance floor and letting lose. At one point, I couldn’t see the band through the throng of people dancing. We figured there might have been about three other people in the place that were even close to our age. It was really strange.
One guy had on a somewhat traditional Western shirt. It had the god-awful brown patches on the back and sleeves, with pearl buttons. But the fabric wasn’t white or black, no my friends, it was leopard spotted. I kid you not. And this guy had to be at least 65. Not only was he a strange individual with his dyed hair, pressed Levis, and leopard western shirt he was dancing with chick after chick on the floor. He was having a great time and the ladies were eating it up.
I think we also saw the inventor of the mullet, and one of the guys from Whitesnake, though about 30 years and 30lbs heavier. There was also this one dood there that had a huge mullet. He got on stage and sang a few song. Hopper and I kept expecting the guy to turn around so a little Quasimodo guy could part the back of his hair and bust out on the mike.
The band was pretty damned good – mostly older traditional R&B. Though it was open-mike the guest list was pretty short and the band and the guests clearly knew each other and all of the material. It was simply too tight for them to be playing any other way. One old black guy looked like he came straight out of the Chicago blues bars from 1940. He had on his cream colored suit, a white shirt, black tie, and a small fedora, with tortoise shell sunglasses on. He sang about three or four songs and the guy was pretty good.
The more the evening wore on, the more we were amazed at the crowd, the band, and the bar in general. Hopper finally got his chance to jam towards the end of the night and he was pretty loose as he’d had a few beers in ‘em. After he was done we went to tab out and though we’d been there for about four hours drinking steady our tab was only $35. Not bad for a night out.
I’m going to have to go back, but next time I am taking my camera…..
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