Boat House Row

    Saturday night we went to Plymouth Memorial Hall and saw a "yacht rock" group called Boat House Row. Yacht Rock is basically soft rock from the 70s through the 80s. It is pretty chill music with some complex instruments. You could consider yacht rock a guilty pleasure for some.

   The concert, as I previously said was at Plymouth Memorial Hall. The venue was only about one sixth full and I felt bad for the band. However, the few people that were there were singing along and dancing their little hearts out.

   The show started at 8 pm. There was a fifteen minute intermission at 9 pm and including the encore ran till almost 10:30. Boat House Row was awesome. The band had six people in it. The keyboards guy and drummer took turns as the singers. The guy that played the sax actually played five different instruments throughout the show. They were very talented musicians.

   I knew I'd know most of the songs but not all of them. I don't really listen to soft rock on the radio. There were about six songs I'd never heard. For Laurie, that number was only one. My favorite song they played was "Brandy" by The Looking Glass

                                              My recording sucks. They sounded much better than this but you can still get a feel for the mood of the crowd. 

   The crowd really for into it when they played "Africa" by Toto and "The Pina Colada Song" by Rupert Holmes. Other songs that I very much enjoyed were "Maneater " by Hall and Oates and "Lido Shuffle" by Boz Scaggs which was the last song of the encore.

   I would be remiss if I did not mention the people watching. We were in the mezzanine near the stage. We had a great view of the band, the floor, and the mezzanine across from us. There were a couple gay guys dancing like crazy about as badly as I dance. There was one guy on the floor, a huge man dressed like a cowboy with sunglasses on. He looked exactly like Cole Hauser, Rip, from Yellowstone. The only way I could tell it wasn't Rip was listening to his voice when he ordered a beer.  I was ten feet away and could not tell it wasn't Cole just by looking. Multiple people asked him if they could take his photo.

Google image

   Lots of  spectators had on those white Captain type hats that Laurie says is from the Love boat. Before the show started I had counted twenty seven before I stopped scanning when the show started. One guy was wearing one but also a navy blue jacket. The best part was he was wearing an apricot colored scarf. I didn't realize why until Laurie explained he was being the guy Carly Simon wrote about in "Your so Vain"

"You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht

Your hat strategically dipped below one eye

Your scarf was apricot"

   I wanted to ask the guy if I could take a photo with him but chose not to. When a song came on that I had never heard, I just watched all these characters and others dancing and having the time of their lives

  Boat House Row is from Philadelphia. They aren't playing any other tour dates around here. However, there are multiple yacht rock groups that tour. So any one of them could be playing again soon. They have some original names "Yachtly Crue" "Yacht Rock Review" and all have been in the area.

   I honestly have to admit that going to this concert was one of the highlights of my summer. With both Laurie and I being healthy, we have done a lot of fun stuff  this year. I had so much fun, the only thing I enjoyed more was catching the Brown Shark. There is no question that when another yacht rock group close close enough to go to, I'm going. Call it a guilty pleasure.