Let me just start by saying this, if you missed that show last night then you definietly missed out on a good one. I had never had the privilege to see Dick Dale in person before last night and neither the crowd nor I were disappointed. Doors opened @ 8p and of course the Surfguru.com crew was there early. The crowd started rolling in between 9p and 10p. The crowd was diverse but definitely more on the mature side, with a smattering of young surfers and skaters thrown in. The venue itself was great, with plenty of room to roam. Big props to the hottest bartender’s in town, Beth and Kelly for taking good care of the patrons as well as the surfguru.com crew. The acoustics for the show were outstanding with Dick setting up four of his own huge monitors to go along with the house gear.

 

Dick is credited with being the originator of “surf” style music with his ’62 album Surfers’ Choice. Dick and his guys took the stage @ 10:10p and lead with “Nitro.” Dick’s style has a very beachy, southern California twang to it, but don’t be fooled his guitar work was vicious and the sound was loud and clean. Some of the other tracks Dick played were classic “Peter Gunn” and with big help from the crowd on Ray Charles’ “What I Say.” Dick killed it on “Bo Didley” jamming on this track for more than 12 minutes which included a drum solo as well as Dick jumping on the drums with his drummer. The entire set lasted one hour and forty-five minutes with no breaks, not bad for a guy who is turning 70 in May. Oh yeah, by the way, the autograph crowd, lasted the better part of an hour with Dick signing guitars, silver records and body parts for good measure. If you missed this show be sure to keep an eye out in the future for Dick Dale to come back around Brevard.

 

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