Rare Essence at the Classics
The Classics 4591 Allentown Rd., Camp Springs, MD 20746

As I walked from my car to the club, a woman honked the horn on her car and called for me to come over and talk her. Her name is Ebony. She wanted to know why a white guy wanted to see RE.

Inside, I faced the same from another woman. They threw away my pen, so all of my notes are off the top of my head. Jay113 was there.

Rare Essence
The line up was: Andre "Whiteboy" Johnson (vocals & guitar), Charles "Shorty Corleone" Garris (vocals), Dave "32" Ellis (vocals), Kimberly "Ms. Kim" Graham (vocals & roto-toms, second set only), Mike Baker (bass), Byron "BJ" Jackson (Keyboards), Scooter (keyboards), Darryl "Blue Eye" Arrington (drummer), Milton "GoGo Mickey" Freeman (congas), Quentin "Shorty Dud" Ivey (percussion). I said hello to GoGo Mickey and BJ. Chris "Rah" Black of WHAT? Band greeted me. Tracie (Model Chick) and Slick Rick were there. For the first set, I watched from the right side standing at the rail to get the best view of GoGo Mickey performing I could. They had a very loose song structure. The first song was, "We got your bad ass on tape", then came "Welcome to the RE Party", later was Geraldine, and "Get Your Freak On". I was paying more attention to the crank than the vocals. They still played more toms than I like, but it was a nice GoGo Mickey performance. I noticed he played more on the smaller drums. There was a guy who held a flash light on the congas for GoGo Mickey. A woman freaked me from behind a few times.

I walked around during the break. Tasha (with Tamara) and I teased each other about being there. Tasty was there. Julia was there, celebrating her birthday. I hung out with her for most of the rest of the performance. She introduced me to her niece.  Kelly, Keshia's cousin, was there.

When I heard a female voice singing at the start of the second set, I walked over to see. I had never seen Ms. Kim perform before, she sang Rihanna's Umbrella. A woman asked me to dance with her and I did for a while. Later I danced with Julia. Michelle Blackwell of the WHAT? Band was there. Then I moved around again. Later Ms. Kim played on the roto-toms with huge drum sticks. Shannon was there. The second to last song was the Shop Boyz' Party Like A Rock Star.

Unfortunately, the most memorable part of the night was in the parking lot after the performance: a shooting.