One of my most awaited shows of the Fall happened on Friday November 15th as the Black Kat Boppers made a stop at Troy’s Hangar On The Hudson during their 18 day tour that took them from New England, down to Austin Texas and back to the Northeast again for their final weekend before heading home. Hailing from the south coast of England, they made the trip across the Atlantic in support of their recently release album, All Out Rock & Roll, from Massachusetts based Swelltune Records (and it is filled with swell tunes, haha, I’m here all week). The Boppers are a foursome featuring vocalist Roy Phillips while lead guitarist Connor Hillary provided tasteful solos. Keeping everything nailed down were stand-up drummer, Colin Stephen Owens and upright bassist, Dylan Clarke with their solid rhythm.
The Boppers kept things moving throughout the night as they sprinkled songs from their previous albums along with the new album. Some of the standouts from All Out R&R were one of my favorites, “Black Kat Boppin’ Atcha,” a swinging number which has been getting a lot of airplay on my radio shows. Following up with some of the other songs from the album were, “Billy Billy” (another song I play quite often), “Love Bug,” “Casting My Spell,” “Scream & Holler,” “Caveman,” “Brand New Cadillac” and the title track, “All Out Rock & Roll.” There were also a couple of the songs from their first album, Boppin Atcha were “My Oh My Girl” and “Hy-Flyin Baby,” as well as, “Your Picture” and “The Joint Kepta’ Rollin’” from their 2018 self-titled album Black Kat Boppers.
All in all, from the time The Boppers hit the stage, people were dancing for every song. Everyone was having a great time. The energy the audience was providing was given back by the band. Phillips was in his glory as he playfully winked, smiled and pointed to various individuals. When he wasn’t singing or playing with the audience, he was coyly shuffling around the stage, so much so, at the end of the night, when I asked to take a pic of the setlist, he handed me a crumpled up pile of paper and said “take this, I have to rewrite it anyway.” Everyone in the band was not only extremely proficient, but seemed to be genuinely nice as well as they posed for pictures and signed albums after the show.
To start the evening, The El Dorados warmed up the audience, and I mean warmed them up. From the first note, audience members started dancing and didn’t let up until the last note of The Boppers. It was great to see lead vocalist/guitarist Paul Dorado out playing again, after what seems like forever since the last time I saw him. He was in constant motion throughout their set. Dorado was joined on stage by drummer Devin McGirk and commuting from Rochester for the show, bassist, Jay Bird Gorleski, who also provided backing vocals.
The entire night flew by as quickly as the fast paced rock & roll everyone was playing. All the musicians gave everything on stage and the audience reciprocated in kind. No one stopped moving, even those of us who were sitting were still tapping our feet and boppin’ to the tunes. Kathy and I even got up to dance for the last two songs of the night. Both bands also brought up special guests for a song, with The El Dorados asking Dana Wilhite to come up to help out with “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” and The Boppers asked High Noon vocalist Shaun Young up to do one of his songs, “She’s A Pistol (When She’s Loaded).” While the crowd wasn’t as large as it should have been, everyone had a great time and, for those who were not familiar with The Black Kat Boppers to start with walked out new fans.
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