So the Neville Brothers were in Prospect Park today

The Neville Brothers - Tell it Like it is (the white dude is Gregg Allman, I think)

The Neville Brothers kicked fucking ass. And even though the crowd kinda sucked, it was still a killer show.

The set was heavy on crowd-pleasing covers, which is cool. They hit their stride around the second song Aaron sang (which were too few), a soul-stirring take on the Sam Cooke classic "A Change is Gonna Come" (the first couple songs were Meters stuff like "Fire on the Bayou"). Then there was Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With", Bill Withers' "Use Me", Rod Stewart's "Drift Away", Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On?", and two or three Professor Longhair tunes and NOLA classics like "Big Chief" (I guess most recognizable as a Lily Allen sample these days). And of course the Neville/Linda Ronstadt (minus the Ronstadt) chestnut "I Don't Know Much" (which I've never really cared for) and a truly sublime, show-closing "Amazing Grace".

As I expected the instrumental stuff and the stuff Art Neville sang was very, very good, and the stuff Aaron sang was so incredible it would pull your heart out and show it to you like a Mortal Kombat fatality. (Who was that anyway, Johnny Cage?) And even though it was a completely irrational hope, I clung to the idea that they might do a bizarrely unseasonal "Please Come Home for Christmas", but no.

The crowd was a mixed bag. A lot of folks were just there for a picnic, with the free music an added bonus. So a lot of people around me were just hanging out chatting, or playing with their yuppiespawn, or being disgusting hippies with hummus smeared in their beards and massaging the fat backs of their gross, busted girlfriends. After a while I wanted to start picking up children by their ankles and bashing their brains out on the nearest tree, but I moved a little further up the hill where more people were actually interested in watching the show and that was better.