Part 1: An ode to The Black Flamingo
Part 2: An ode to The (Purple) Black Flamingo people
Part 4: Post show Purple Flamingos!
Part 5: Whiskey Dick and James Hunnicut: Live @ Den Oude Ketel
Part 3: Whiskey Dick and James Hunnicut: Live @ The Black Flamingo
Stardate, Wednesday the 14th of June. We have finally arrived at the centre of it all. It is a beautiful, hot summer day. In driving up the yellow sand road towards The Black Flamingo, it clicks I have never seen this place in the daylight. It is even nicer and more peaceful than I could ever imagine. The little chapel with the Mary statue draws my attention and drags me back in time to my childhood. My dad would have loved this and probably hung it in his backyard, as well. I don’t have much time to mull on this however, because the music pulls me into the doors.
You have to know first, Jo and I have been excitedly exchanging messages about the night. He sent me a picture of three bearded men who seem to be having a good time in the garden of The Black Flamingo.
I ask who is who in the picture, so I have a better idea what to expect for the night. Somewhere my wires got crossed and I thought I was going to see a Reverend-something (There are a lot of them in the type of music I am expecting.) as the opener and that Whiskey Dick was a James and a Fritz. I had a vague idea I was in for a good night.
I’d never heard about that Reverend, but the attempts at listening to Whiskey Dick, (While simultaneously trying to tame my hyperactive brain into writing about other music.) had proven entertaining enough. And as I said, word from Jo was good enough. He was VERY excited, so I knew it had to be GOOD. I was amply amped for Whiskey Dick. I thought I was prepared for what was coming. I settle into one of the comfortable recliners and let the notes start to wash over me.
I WAS NOT PREPARED! Not in the slightest. Because first I am totally confused about who I am seeing. That’s the Reverend! Wait, is he a Reverend? No, his name is James. Oh. Okay. Who cares about names anyway at this point. THIS IS AMAZING. I didn’t write down much, because most of the time I was just staring in awe. Funny that Jo captured this song Bad Girl when it is one of the only ones I reference in my notes. (Great minds and all that!) Listen to THIS!
I barely remember where his performance ended and Whiskey Dick’s began, because they like to get on stage with one another. So next up is a jumbled mess of two performances that intertwined so much I’m not even going to try and untangle them. So from now on we have three key players. There is James (Hunnicutt), the opening act and occasional backing vocals to Whiskey Dick. (Weird to call him that, because his voice could never (and should never) just be in the back, but we will get to that.) Then we have Fritz and the Reverend who make up Whiskey Dick. Now that I got the confusion out of the way, let’s get on with the show.
James Hunnicutt’s voice is indescribably great. At one point he praises Fritz for his great bass voice but James goes from high to low without batting an eye. The notes are crystal clear and he can hold them for impossibly long. I am sitting there, absolutely gobsmacked. Thinking of all the ways I was going to yell at Jo: HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! Nicely, mind you. As I said, I get loud when excited.
So, THAT VOICE. But more than that, he pounds his guitar and moulds it to his words. Chords that go so deep you can almost feel it in your teeth. His string gives out, but he plays the song until the end. But it was his final song, so that’s a nice magical way of rounding up.
The audience wants more though. He gives in with a request by one of the audience members. I later find out she is a really nice lady, who breathes music and lyrics as much as I do. This is her tattoo. Her name is Ann but her alter ego is Mia. (MIA! Like Gorki. In my head at least.) She told me the whole story but I was too entranced to write it down. Look at what it says. It could be my new life motto.
She’s followed James Hunnicutt for years now. I totally understand why. The song is ‘Don’t let teardrops fill your eyes’. He starts playing it, Fritz and the Reverend do a silly dance in the back and sing along. The more he sings ‘don’t let teardrops fill your eyes’, the more teardrops fill my eyes. See for yourself.
(The dance you see happening behind James is a thing that has started during a show when he felt sad to play that song. People from the audience started dancing it behind him to make him feel better and encourage him. From then on, it has been almost mandatory to dance the dance. If that isn’t Purple as fuck, I don’t know what is.)
The nonsense in between the songs is Purple. James, Fritz and the Reverend are three friends making music and touring. They love what they do and they love doing it together. (There is talk of them actually doing it together, as Tres Bastardos, but I will go into that another time. I will find out more, but what I heard made me SQUEE with joy.) It all adds a layer to the magic. They have voices and sounds that go all through your body, to the tips of your toes. This is the kind of mindfulness I can dig. Feeling the music rush through you, both physically and emotionally. James takes a seat in the audience while Whiskey Dick takes the stage. He pets Caramel and comments on HOW GOOD his mates are.
So I already told you a bit about Fritz’ voice, so I had already settled down on that while writing my next notes. I start off by going crazy about the Reverend and his guitar playing. I address him directly: ‘Reverend, seriously, one would start believing in God seeing such virtuosity. Effortless virtuosity no less, while chain smoking and quickly putting his butt between the strings and batters away on them. This is also where I call him the silent force of the group and compare him to Kyle Gass from Tenacious D.
You must know by now I am a HUGE fan of the D. The day before The Black Flamingo show, they had played at Vorst Nationaal. I hadn’t been there and up to this point I was a little bummed out. Jo and Tiho had gone and I had been SO jealous and reliving my night with Tenacious D in my head. Let me tell you. Whiskey Dick made me forget about missing Tenacious D. Like, I’d seen that and I hated Vorst Nationaal anyway. And the energy of this band reminded me so much about what I had lived there.
At this point, I feel the need to mention that by calling the guitar picking Reverend the silent force, I am not saying Fritz isn’t completely fantastic in his own way. Because the power chords he pushes from his guitar are mental. And that voice, it’s like James Hetfield and Johnny Cash had a love baby. Actually, the music also holds vaguely in between those genres. They themselves call it Yeehaw Metal and I am here for it.
I am in love with that voice, and entranced by that guitar playing. How the fuck do you get that kind of sound out of a very normal acoustic guitar. At one point it sounds like intricate violin playing. I see the Reverend’s feet move over the pedals in front of him and am completely transfixed. I make a note to ask him after the show ‘HOW’.
I feel like I am in second grade. I remember liking my teacher so much, he always made me smile. At one point I asked him if I could stop smiling, because my face hurt. This is how I feel right now. I am in the comfortable embrace of the nice couch letting it all wash over me and wrap me like a warm blanket. A metaphorical one, because it is still really hot out. Pour one out for our fallen heroes they sing. This is life.
All good things must come to an end, so unfortunately it’s the same in this case. But they didn’t leave without going out with a bang. There is one song they haven’t played. It was especially requested for Misses Black Flamingo, who usually doesn’t attend, but who was front and centre for Whiskey Dick. The song is a cover of Purple Rain by Prince. He is one of those artists I don’t have much of an opinion about one way or the other. (Yes, that happens!) But Whiskey Dick’s rendition of the song made me a fan of Purple Rain. Not only because it has Purple in the title. It was a perfect ending to an already perfect night.
I’m not only enjoying that cover immensely through my own eyes and ears. Most of that song I am watching this scene of mother and son bonding over so many different meanings to a song. Not just what is in the words, but what it represents to them. To Tiho it is about his friend who died too young. But he is with us in spirit, because his picture is a permanent fixture on the wall of The Black Flamingo. There may be a lot of music loving spirits here.
It is the end of the show but not the end of the night because I still have yet to meet these three amazing human specimens. And some other class act people.
But I’ll have to keep that for Part four: Post-show Purple People. Because there is still so much story to tell.
JAMES HUNNICUTT & WHISKEY DICK – Wednesday, June 14th 2023 – The Black Flamingo, Nijlen
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