Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Spin The Spin: Hot Rocks at Mercy Lounge
Posted by The Spin on Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 4:35 PM
With Friday night a little slow on the live music front, The Spin found it a perfect opportunity to check out something a little different happening over on Cannery Row. Word on the street was, the masterminds behind The 5 Spot's weekly Monday night dance party phenomenon, "Keep on Move'n" were attempting the same on a slightly larger scale at Mercy Lounge.
We showed up around 11 p.m. thinking we'd given things plenty of time to start simmering, but were instead rather underwhelmed by the crowd. While there were plenty in attendance to fill out the event's usual home at The 5 Spot, energy was diluted and its mass was displaced over Mercy's much bigger room. A small but spirited dance party of a dozen or less maintained activity on the dance floor. Fortunately, things were soon about to change. It took an appearance by Heath Haynes and the Hi-Dollars at midnight to condense this mass before the stage and make use of its full potential. Direct from Lower Broad, the band jaunted through a revved-up collection of jukebox standards that kicked everyone up a few notches and into maximum overdrive. The fire burned out a little during the course of their set, with the crowd waning a bit in density, but those who remained persevered with pure energy.
Once the Hi-Dollars were done, Jacob Jones and Reno Bo resumed their positions behind the DJ booth to pump out another steady stream of rock 'n' soul faves. The sock-hopping, rug-cutting masses wasted no time making their way back to the dance floor where, in spite of the bitter wind outside, they were soaking each other with sweat almost instantly. Though we admittedly had our doubts just over an our before, it was indeed official: The boys had indeed managed to match the intensity of their weekly jam in Five Points in the much bigger Mercy Lounge. We also couldn't help but notice, despite the high frequency of dance parties these days, it'd been some time since we'd witnessed one of this magnitude. These events have traditionally been relegated almost exclusively to a futuristic, technotronic backdrop, but could it be these vintage relics have, at least for now, pulled the rug from underneath machine-made music and replaced it as the official dance party soundtrack of '09?
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