What: The Radiators at Skipper's, July 29th
Where: Skipper's Smokehouse, The Skipperdome, Skip to my Loo…
Must-Do? Says Who? Snider & Tatangelo
Casualties: $13 for beer; a gallon or so of sweat
Notable Quotable: "I want you to be my bride, baby / Just let me jump inside, baby…"
[piece also available HERE on the Tampa Calling music blog]
We arrived at Skipper’s Smokehouse half an hour later than expected. Disoriented by our, um, pre-concert routine, we found certain aspects of navigation difficult from the outset; a tricky detour on Fletcher complicated matters even further. By the time we handed our five dollars to the drunken veteran manning the parking lot next door, the Glass Camels had finished their set and the Radiators’ roadies were going to work. Checking in at the door, we grabbed beers and found seats by the soundboard.
Skipper’s looks like something conceived by Jimmy Buffet during a bout of delirium tremens—though Mr. Buffett’s brand of surf-blah was mercifully absent from the evening’s soundtrack. The bandstand is flanked by Alice in Wonderland-gone-tropical paintings of a shark playing guitar, a downcast fish-admiral, and a pig with wings. Elsewhere, swamp-kitsch replicas of fish with sunglasses and harmonica-toting crabs decorate the tables and walls. The main picnic/dance area looks like an imploded cabana, the roof of which probably blew off at the peak of a guitar solo. Now there’s a canopy of trees in place of a ceiling, and sand in place of a floor. If I were a rumrunner with a blues habit, this is where I’d hide.
This article appears in Jul 25-31, 2007.