Finally one of my fave bands of the past two years brought their unique retro-soul/rock and roll to SF for their own headlining appearance and they were great. a very spirited set with solid renditions of all of their songs and a surprising amount of interesting slight variations on familiar numbers. The vocalist is a very engaging and energetic performer and the band members have a real cool bad ass jazz band look and attitude going on. All of them are very goodlooking–just look at the photo of the vocalist above. His singing was sexy and versatile, at times sounding like James Brown to Marvin Gaye to Screaming J. Hawkins. The crowd in attendance was much larger than i anticipated. i guess i liked to think The Heavy were my little secret and not real widely known but their music has appeared on a national automobile commercial and i also heard them on the trailer for the upcoming Green Hornet movie, so they are indeed getting the attention they so richly deserve for being one of the hottest rock and soul outfits and dazzling british imports to hit these shores in awhile. This brings me to a question that i often find myself asking at many shows here in San Francisco: Why don’t San Francisco audiences ever really dance to the music? To me they often seem staid, kind of like standing there with their arms crossed and saying, “Oh Yeah? Prove it,” to the band on stage rather than getting down and shaking it a little. And if ever there was a band worth dancing to, The Heavy are that band. The people down front were feeling it but most of the rest of the house seemed indifferent though attentive. In the late sixties I dont think SF was thought of as the city with audiences that just stand there but it’s 2010 and many touring bands are starting to note this too-hip-to-dance dynamic from the audiences of this fair city. whats that all about?