Y’all know nothing but death could’ve kept me from seeing one of my favorite groups kick off their milestone tour celebrating the 35th anniversary of the “Forever My Lady” album in my city. So, you can best believe I was perched up in Stifel Wednesday night with Jodeci boots laced halfway up! I got exactly what I expected out of them. That first “whoo yeah” me all the way back to the first chapter of my prime! My only negative note was that the computer generated exotic dancers that were playing on the big screen for one of their songs. Those double-jointed stripper bots were a bit much. If y’all came for Jodeci slander, let me stop you right now because you won’t get any out of me. K-Ci still has those vocals – and Dalvin still has those hunches. I don’t know where DeVante was, but I figured he wouldn’t be on deck when I only saw three of them on the promo pics. Half of my row must have come to see him, because they hit it when he didn’t show up by the second song. JoJo is clearly at his best health wise, so I will commend him for giving what he had and move on. That K-Ci held it down with his deacon/men’s choir vocals. He sounded so churchy that I was expecting him to say “turn to your neighbor…” at any given moment. “Love U 4 Life” put me in a time machine and transported me back to 1995. I know folks complained about them taking the stage at 9:20, but that’s about the time the headliner goes on. And DJ Shaun Nyce got it in. Don’t act like you didn’t Dru Hill’s “Tell Me” hop. Apparently, it’s gonna be instinctive until we are confined to a motorized cart. Fine with me! Oh, and they might want to consider taking Chingy on the road with them for some other shows. Dalvin was great as his hype man.
Bonfire bonanza. I hadn’t been to three bonfires in my whole life before last weekend. And somehow breeze and freeze through three in two days. The first was the DJ Bounce, Kellog G, DJ Kut and Shorty set Saturday night at Coffa Garden. I haven’t kicked in Wellston since the Venue was open, but I had a time. The DJs took me through it in the best conceivable way. One minute we were poppin’ it to Too Live Crew. Our next breath singing “Don’t blame Mr. Charlie…” along with Betty Wright. I’m so glad DJ Bounce had sense enough to play those slides so my body temperature would spike, and I wouldn’t freeze to death. This is gonna sound like dry hatin’, but I really think a few of y’all secretly had your knee replacement surgeries early. Because the girls of a certain age were getting so deep down in their twerks that they were scraping the ground like it wasn’t full on arthritis weather. I’m just sayin.’
The long walk home from the bonfire. It was such a cute time that I decided I was gonna swing by the 5th Annual McCluer, Berkeley and McCluer North all-class bon fire over. I’ve been beating the streets for generations and I ain’t never seen anything in North County like what I pulled up on. There was not a single place to park along 67 from Old Halls Ferry to Old Jamestown Road. I’m talking the side of the roads, inside subdivisions, church parking lots, gas pumps, ditches…you name it! It looked like it was the end of the world, and everybody in North County just parked on the side of the road and decided to have one big outside party while we waited on the spaceship to take us up to Mars. I legit had to call a Lyft to take me from my car to the actual bonfire. And when I got up there, I saw everybody I had ever met in my life. And 70 percent of them were just like me – meaning that they never stepped foot at Berkeley or McCluer, north, south, separate or together. It was cute. The promoters should be able to retire after 30,000 people showed up willing to pay $30. I decided that I was gonna be a soldier and walk back to my car. Pastor F. James Clark deserves all the glory for the fact that I lived to type this Partyline. If Shalom hadn’t had “My sister, don’t give up. You can make it,” on their digital display sign, I would have given up on crawling back to my car, rolled over in a ditch and just waited until I saw the light.
Circling back to Coffa. For those who kept side-eying me as I limped around on Sunday when I hit up the U. City bonfire on Sunday, blame McCluer and Berkeley. U. City’s set wasn’t as packed as the Saturday bonfire, but the energy was all the way live! And I haven’t seen so many luxury vehicles parked in Wellston since that time Nicki Minaj (long before she became Maga Minaj) had folks piled up in The Venue. Two Maserati trucks on Hodiamont? That was real U. City of y’all! It was a good time though, I ain’t gonna lie.