Friday at Club Levels
Club Levels, 1960 Montana Av NE, Washington, DC 20500

Club Levels is named for the fact that the club is actually divided into levels. In fact, the front actually says "Boom Boom Room". They showed me the area that Familiar Faces would perform in. I made the fortunate mistake of arriving rather early, even before Familiar Faces! I say fortunate, because it allowed me to watch all of the instruments be set up, which I hadn't seen before. From the moment I first arrived until FF started performing, the DJ played pre-recorded music - mostly GoGo, which of course I liked, but while the pre-recorded music played, the speaker volume was louder than at any other performance I've been to. This performance/dance area is rather narrow; I would say around 12' wide. The couches were black with matching tables and red ashtrays - the table across from the couch I sat at had a checkerboard, with checker pieces that were shot glasses with red or black circles on them. There also were gray plush backless benches. The drums were the first instruments to be set up, by Packy and a support guy (I believe Jermaine). In the process, Packy lip-synched on the mic to the pre-recorded music, included a Rare Essence song with Donnell on vocals.

As the band members arrived, they encouraged me to check out the free buffet, which was good. Donnell let me know that they would be playing at 12:30 AM. DJ Rico, a large man (over 6' and over 300 pounds), DJed - he wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt that were black with a green grid pattern, as well as white socks and black sneakers. I got to see him set up as well.

Familiar Faces
They had an altered line up for this performance: there were two keyboards as usual, but besides Godfather, the other keyboard player was Duane "Duane Face" Henderson, playing a Yamaha Motif6 (when I spoke with him on June 22nd, he said this was his first time playing with FF). There was also a third percussionist, and Boolah and Doc weren't present (Doc was on vacation). BJ played the electric bass instead of keyboards: Duane Face was basically filling in for Doc. Since it was 70s night, the front four (Mike, Adia, Donnell, and DP) were more dressed up and all of them wore hats. A number of people in the audience (both male and female) wore afro wigs.

Unlike most of their performances I have been to, they started off using the entire percussion instead of drum kit, while still performing much of their usual neo-soul set - this of course made it funkier! During their performance of Rare Essence's Take Me Out to the GoGo, Donnell spotted Go-Go Mickey in the audience. It turns out this was a pre-arranged, paid appearance, see here. He wore a white basketball jersey with "Rare Essence" and the number 23 printed on the front and "Mickey" and the number 23 on the back. Donnell sent his friend "Fats" to go get Mickey to come up and play with him - "a reunion" in Donnell's words. Go-Go Mickey came in during the song and played with FF for the rest of the night.

After the first set ended, Donnell encouraged people to go to the buffet and also to the back where the 70s costume contest was being conducted ($250 each to the best male and female costumes), but said, "Fats" has already won the male costume. Fats wore a black wide-brimmed hat, a red shirt, and a black full-length coat.

As usual, the last set was the best. This was without a doubt, the crankiest performance I've been to this summer. After they turned the lights on (an obvious sign it was almost time to leave) came the highlight of the night - a furious percussion trio of Pooh, Bojack and Mickey. A girl came up and got me to dance during this trio (she was rather thin, I could feel her ribs when we danced), but we stopped when they started playing at a pace too fast to dance to - eventually BJ and Godfather comped their trio, which finally ended when Bojack walked away with a smile. Then Donnell encouraged them to start a new groove, "One that you had to be 35 to know" - it was what is known as 2001 - actually the opening to Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, which was in the opening to the movie 2001 - together with guitar and keyboards. Then the whole band started to perform again and the lights went out again: they performed one full song, then a fragment and the lights went on again and management said - that's it. The ending was also unusual - other than Donnell kidding Bojack about "David Green and Jungle Boogie" (two prior Rare Essence percussionists), Bojack did the after-performance joning, mostly picking on various people for their unfashionable clothing. I left after he finished. I drove home, but got lost on the way back, missing the transition from NY Av to Mass Av as I did coming home from the Market Lounge.

Rest in Peace to Len Bias, who died on this day eighteen years ago.