Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears @ La Sala Rossa

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears recently made their fourth visit to Montreal in only three years; that's an impressive amount of shows for any out-of-town band, but for a seven-piece band from Austin, Texas it is almost unheard of. It is also proof that they are willing to do whatever it takes to win over this city despite the complete lack of commercial radio support.

After a 2009 opening slot with the New York Dolls, a headlining gig last winter at Il Motore and two shows at last summer’s Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, this time they took to the stage at La Sala Rossa to testify and win more converts. With no opening band, it was an early start, but the room was full by the time the show started around 9:30.

The show opened with "Livin’ In The Jungle", the lead off track from their latest album, Scandalous. As it does on the record, the song bursts out of the gates with no intro, just a punch of horns, drums and guitars to announce the beginning of something special. The combination of gut-bucket blues, dirty funk, and rock and roll are all there in a beautiful blend that makes this band timeless. With a killer three-piece horn section, two guitars and a rhythm section that could keep it bouncing and swinging in equal doses, this band could easily have been playing the same joints that The Isley Brothers or The Ike and Tina Turner Revue were hitting on the Chitlin’ circuit back in the mid-60’s, or The Stooges and Funkadelic were hitting further north a few years later. Much like all of those bands, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears cannot be placed in one box. They play rock and roll the way it was originally intended, from the gut and without rules.

A few songs later, the band cranked it up another notch with what could be called the “booty suite”. "Big Booty Woman" and "Booty City," a couple of songs about a very particular type of body part on a particular type of woman, played back-to-back, which confirmed what Black Joe likes in his woman and that songs about booty really get a party going. By the end of those two songs, the final few non-dancing holdouts were shakin’ their booty with the rest of us.

Over the next 60 minutes or so, the band would bounce around their catalogue of songs. They relied more on original material this time than at last winter’s Il Motore show (having another full album to pull from will do that for you), but there were a few covers thrown in, including a great version of Robert Johnson’s "Stop Breaking Down," which can be found on the deluxe edition of Scandalous.

The biggest difference between this show and the show at Il Motore a year earlier was the slightly more serious tone. Last winter they seemed to be just playing a show; this show they were trying to make more of a statement. That is not to say that the show was any less fun than last year's; Black Joe was still making jokes with the audience and the band’s tongue-in-cheek, choreographed dance moves let everyone know that they were still there for a good time but they also have something to say about the world that we live in. These Texans know how to blend politics and funk the same way James Brown could. When Black Joe introduced "Jesus Took My Hand" as a song for “all the soldiers fighting in the desert,” he left it at that and let the song do the speaking for him.

To bring the night to a close, the band ripped through an amped-up version of "Sugarfoot," a track off their first album that could be considered their biggest hit to date. Although the room had been dancing all night, this last number really got the room moving (I even saw jazz hands from an older woman who was obviously totally taken away by the song) and was the best way to go out, leaving everyone wanting more. I, for one, definitely fell in to that category and cannot wait for the next time these fellas roll through town … which is rumored to be only five weeks away as the opener for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings at Metropolis.

If the rumor is true, you can make that five times in three years for a seven- piece band from Austin, Texas. A note to our fair city’s commercial radio stations: give them one shot and they will make you a believer. I can testify to that.

-Prince Palu hosts The Go-Go Radio Magic Show on Fridays from 6-8pm