The joys of retirement, John Belushi and the mustard-stained toga, the intense rays of the sun, Jimmy and the delicious street tacos, and Kevin’s vast array of sunglasses

On a south side Chicago cul-de-sac – a rarity in the second city – our intrepid heroes spread out their travelling sideshow on a long, long driveway and played a retirement party concert for the ages. The full band was augmented by founding member Jimmy Cavanaugh and his lovely, white Gibson Flying-V.

Let’s begin with the sound check – Rob’s bass amp once again seemed to suffer from a general absence of sound. Once he figured out the glitch, BPB 3.0 was up and running through two sets of older and newer songs that were met with equal enthusiasm from the mostly Generation X crowd (I believe that EVERYONE there was 58, including half the band). In between, there were many stories circulating regarding when the men first saw Animal House at the theatre…and marveled at seeing the “forbidden sights” as 12-year-old boys. Ah, the follies of youth. Mike’s story topped them all: his mother took him to see it on Halloween, 1978…and she never covered his eyes. Never. Speaking of forbidden sights, there were too many guys who were barely wearing their togas…much to the chagrin of the onlookers. There should have been strict rules concerning, let’s say, coverage. And, there were children present. This didn’t stop Boober from occasionally going blue. Well, not navy blue – more like periwinkle.

The band was in terrific form after weeks of, shall we say, sectional practices where both Lisa and Mike were largely absent due to vacation and carpal tunnel surgery recovery, respectively. Kudos to the rest of the band who managed to hold BPB together during the gap between gigs (nearly three months). The new material went over well with the Romanesque crowd as BPB provided the right balance of bread and circuses (well, mostly circuses from Boober who was dressed like a dorky surfer dude named Moonbeam). Speaking of attire, Mike looked like a reluctant biker named Rex – revealing his ferocious tat. Keith and Jimmy were engaged in an unintentional gun show competition, and Kevin had sunglasses for each genre of song that BPB performed. His spiked shades for Judas Priest were legendary. Ellen and Lisa looked and sounded terrific all evening. Their harmonies were stellar!
One of the highlights was when Keith played his sax on Find Another Fool in a solo duet with Ellen. Another highlight was when Jimmy brought out his beautiful acoustic guitar for What’s Up…and played the wrong opening chord. By that point in the proceedings, I really don’t think the Romans noticed.

Another gig in the books…and another step towards making BPB 3.0 an act for the ages!

​Mike Morsovillo